


Flash: The Serpent's Tale

by shadowsteed15



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), DCU, DCU (Comics), The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV) Season 2, Deception, Eobard Thawne | Harrison Wells Lives, Episode AU: s02e16 Doomworld, Episode: s01e09 The Man In The Yellow Suit, Episode: s02e16 Doomworld, Episode: s02e17 Flash Back, F/M, Friendship, Metahumans, Original Character(s), Secret Identity, The Flash (TV 2014) Season 1, The Legion of Doom (DCU), Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26394901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsteed15/pseuds/shadowsteed15
Summary: Life often teaches us that fate can be quite cruel, even to the strongest and smartest of us, it often has a habit of turning on us when we least expect it, especially when we fail to treat it with enough respect. Eobard Thawne has learned that the hard way more than once. But sometimes, fate favours those who find the courage and the fortitude to take the risks necessary to change it, especially when it comes from a desire to help someone else. For while it can be cruel, it's not without a sense of humour.
Relationships: Eobard Thawne | Harrison Wells & Original Female Character(s), Eobard Thawne/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to my new story, this is going to be a longer project of mine, a multichapter story about my DC universe original character. :) Because my character is not strictly from the Arrowverse universe, neither is this story, so not everything can be necesserily Arrowverse canon, but I'm trying to keep it neutral. :) I hope you enjoy reading this. :)

Flash: The Serpent’s Tale

Chapter 1.

December 11, 2013

It was a pleasant night, albeit a bit chilly, with the beginnings of a storm rising up on the slowly darkening sky above Central City on that fateful day, as the city gathered in front of the enormous, concrete building, to celebrate what was meant to be the greatest scientific accomplishment of the last several decades. It was meant to be something glorious, something the city has bonded over as thousands of people came to witness what many of them considered simply to be a good show, others understood it to be a miracle, and some feared it was nothing but a recipe for a disaster, and yet everyone has gathered here to present to it, to see the launching of the newly finished S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator and what change will it bring to the fast approaching future.

Among the many people who came here was also a certain young man named Barry Allen, the youngest member of Central City Police Department, who was not just a very competent forensic scientist, in fact some of his fellow officers would readily call him a regular Sherlock Holmes, but he was also quite the science geek himself, and being here tonight has been a bit of a dream come true, not only because of the potential progress this night could bring to every possible, and not just purely scientific, field out there, to humanity’s general knowledge of the world, but also because it was a chance for him to finally catch a glimpse of a man who has been somewhat of his idol for the last several years. Dr. Harrison Wells was a truly brilliant man whose efforts to bring about new advancements and progress for the benefit of all humanity were truly spectacular and way ahead of everything the world has accomplished so far and Barry considered the man to be a genius at the very least.

And so it was an absolute thrill to see the man step on the stage to the sounds of excited whistling and clapping of many hands, wearing an expensive suit and a huge smile on his face and Barry had a hard time keeping his own excitement in check as he stood there with his best friend, Irish West, who herself wasn’t as enthusiastic about the concept as he was, but, as a good friend, was quite happy for his own happiness, and listened with him as dr. Wells spoke of the many changes his particle accelerator will bring into the world. And so it was a rather unpleasant interruption when a man, who didn’t seem much older than Barry himself, shoved into Iris, and ran off with her bag, along with the laptop inside it. And as Barry ran to a hurried rescue, he had to appologize as he pushed through the crowd and suddenly slammed into a young, blond woman who didn’t seem to notice him as she stood and stared, quite fascinated, at the stage, before he sped of, not knowing where this night will eventually lead him. And as the clouds gathered up in the sky and opened up to shower the darkened city with rain, the ground shook as a wave of energy swept through the city, and a lonely lightning found its mark as destiny began to take its course, following a one man’s journey towards an uncertain future.

October, 2014

It was now almost a full year since the night the particle accelerator exploded, and since then, many things have changed. Everyone had a slightly different opinion as to how much exactly or which one of those changes affected them most, but for the team at S.T.A.R. Labs, it was definitely Barry Allen. The young man, who fell into a coma for nine months after being hit by a lightning, and came back not only alive, but with literal lightning in his veins, able to run at speed that was barely perceivable to the human eye, and that was probably only because he wore a bright red suit that was hard to miss, was now the centre of everyone attention and concern. 

There was dr. Harrison Wells, who, after the particle accelerator explosion, was seriously wounded himself and ended up, according to the doctors, in a wheelchair for the rest of his life with his damaged spine, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to help other people, even though no one seemed too eager to accept his help anymore. A lot of people died that night, and many more, as it seemed, came out of that night changed, some in a good way, but most of them were bad, and so it was the Flash, much to his annoyance at first, who took it upon himself to capture and help contain them, even though it hasn’t been a very successful campaign so far when it came to capturing them alive.

Then, there were two of Barry’s new friends, dr. Caitlin Snow, a brilliant and beautiful young bio-engineer who suffered probably the greatest loss of all of them, loosing her own fiancé, who sacrificed himself trying to save the city, and Cisco Ramon, a mechanical engineer whose brilliant toys and innovations, along with his good humour and cheerful demeanor always kept the team’s mood up even in the darkest of times. Together they formed a crime fighting team, rebuilding what was left of the particle accelerator into a make-shift metahuman prison to contain those who chose to use their newfound powers to hurt others.

It was now only a few weeks after they first started with all this, and it seemed like their work to catch all the metahumans created by the explosion last year was going to be a long one. But that particular week has started rather normally, as dr. Wells has once again surprised everyone by devising a new way to train not only the speed of Barry’s body, but also of his mind, by making him play chess, ping-pong and Operation with him, Cisco and Caitlin respectively, at the same time. It was one of those instances when Barry was intentionally annoying everyone in the room in his desire to show off, and so it was, perhaps, for that reason mostly that dr. Wells was wearing such a smug expression on his face as he announced his victory, even as the Flash sped off to stop an ongoing robbery.

Unbeknown to the Flash, that robbery was to be the start of one of the most interesting relationships in his life, but at that time, it was just his very first encounter with a new enemy. The thief's name was Leonard Snart, son of a corrupt policeman, quite famous himself among Central City’s police force as a man who was excellent in planning out his crimes, because he knew precisely how this game of cops and robbers worked. Snart was as ruthless as he was cunning, a man who did not hesitate to threaten a life to get what he wanted. And unlike his petty underlings, he wasn’t scared to take a risk in order to win. 

And so, when the Flash managed to foil Snart’s plan to steal the famous Kahndaq Dynasty diamond, an enormous stone with definitely quite the price associated with it, it was without a doubt that he would try again, and so it was, for now, left to detective Joe West, the man Barry regarded as his second father for a very long time, and his partner, Eddie Thawne, to watch over the museum where the diamond was currently stored. And sure enough, it didn’t take Snart too long to make his move, boldly showing his face in the museum for everyone to see, drawing for the attack not only the two detectives, but also the Flash. 

However, as Joe West moved for the proverbial kill, it was pretty apparent that Snart was not joking this time as he brandished a high-tech cold gun that would make even mr. Freeze proud, freezing the nearby road, causing an approaching police car to nearly kill the detective, and then casually strode inside a nearby theatre. Following them inside the building, the Flash had his hands full as Snart shot his gun at the surrounding civilians repeatedly, blasting them with a stream of deadly fast-freezing liquid, giving Barry a hard time as he tried to save them all. 

And then, in a moment that, in a terrifying way, slowed down inside Barry’s mind as he tried desperately to stop what was about to happen, Snart turned as he saw a security guard coming from the theatre hall, raised his hand with the gun and fired, and this time, not even Barry’s fast legs were enough as the bright stream shot through the air, aiming straight at the man’s chest. And yet, suddenly, almost at the last moment, there was a movement to his left as someone else run forward, jumping across the aisle and pushing the guard our of the way, and a thud sounded as the man fell to the ground, along with a loud, female scream and the Flash looked down in a slight shock. There was a young woman there, lying and whimpering on the ground, half of her right arm enclosed in ice. She looked at the Flash and tried to smile, but her face contorted in pain and as Joe ran inside the hall to help with the guard, Leonard Snart being long gone at that time, the Flash did not hesitate as he took the woman into his arms and ran to S.T.A.R. Labs.

Several hours later, he watched, still in his Flash costume, as the woman slowly woke up in the medbay. He stood there and smiled at her as she opened her eyes, winced, and then promptly tried to sit, but he gently pushed her back down. “It’s alright, you’re at S.T.A.R. Labs.” he said. “You were caught in an ice blast. I had to bring you here as fast as I could so you wouldn’t lose an arm. Do you remember that?” he asked and the woman nodded, as she looked down at the bandages covering her from the hand up to her elbow. “Thank you.” she said gently, looking up at him. He noticed that she had very light, blonde hair, her eyes a soft, grey-blue colour. “How long was I out of it?” she asked, as she reached over to a small table next to the cot, and put on the thin glasses that she found there.

“Just a few hours.” sounded a voice from behind them as another, brown-haired woman came in then, followed by a cute-looking, Latin American man who looked very sombre as he stared at the woman on the cot. “You were in a lot of pain, so I gave you a mild sedative to help you sleep it off.” the woman with the brown hair continued. “Fortunately, we managed to remove the ice in time, so the tissue damage was not too extensive, but we will keep these bandages for a while while you heal, ok?” she said, making her newest patient nod as the Flash stepped closer.

“You know, what you did back there was very brave. You saved that man’s life.” he said appreciatevely and she nodded, sitting up slightly as a few more pillows were placed behind her back to make her more comfortable. “Yes, well, I hid in the hall when I saw the man coming in the theatre, but when I saw him aiming for that security guard, I knew that I had to help.” she replied, and then she grinned. “I was really, really hoping that I’ll be able to do that without catching the blast myself, but I wasn’t that lucky I guess.” she shrugged, and winced at the pain shooting towards her shoulder. “I’m Adrianne.” she added. “Adrianne Blake.” 

The Flash smiled and shook her left hand gently, before speaking: “It’s nice to meet you, Adrianne. I’m the Flash, and this is Caitlin and Cisco. They work with me here at S.T.A.R. Labs.” If she was slightly peeved by his reluctance to tell her his real name, she didn’t have time to voice it, because just as she took a breath to speak, there was a soft, whirring sound coming from the hallway, as an older man in a wheelchair, with short, dark hair and striking blue eyes, moved into the medbay and the others wordlessly made way for him to move through. “Ah, welcome back, miss… Blake, was it? You gave us quite the scare back there. Fortunately, the Flash brought you straight here, rather then a hospital. I’m not sure if any doctors would be able to deal with this level of cryopathy. You’re lucky not to have lost your arm.”

“So I was told.” said the woman known as Adrianne quietly, staring at him, and there was something of a slight shock in her eyes as she inspected the man in front of her carefully, her eyes studying his face. The Flash had to smile as he saw what he recognised as the same look of amazement he himself had when he finally found himself face to face with the man, through almost similar circumstances, though in her case, there seemed to be a sort of reverence even, carefully hidden as she smiled. “Thank you.” she said at the end as she shook the man’s hand as well. “You must be dr. Wells, I’ve heard… and read a lot about you.” she added cheerfully.

“Well, I hope you haven’t read anything too recent. Though all quite deserved, I’m afraid there’s little that Central City has to say about me now that is positive in nature.” he remarked, and she sighed, her smile gentle. “Things like that happen sometimes, dr. Wells. I’m sure you didn’t mean for the particle accelerator to explode.” she said cordially as she looked into his eyes. “That much must be clear to everybody. And what you do here, well, that I think will be enough to redeem the mistakes you made.” she said kindly, earning a grateful smile from him. 

“That’s very nice of you to say, miss Blake, and I can promise you we are certainly doing our best. Speaking of that, though you’ve stumbled upon our secret by means of unavoidable circumstance, I’m sure I don’t have to stress the importance of you keeping quiet about all this. Should even the knowledge of our involvement with the Flash escape the confines of these walls, it would mean a lot of trouble for our cause.” his voice was kind, but his eyes held a lot of meaning behind them, and she felt slightly self-conscious looking into them as she nodded. “Of course,” she said. “I am rather good at keeping secrets.” She gave him a reassuring smile and he stared at her for a while more, making her slightly uncomfortable.

“Very well, then.” he said at the end, appearantly willing to take her word for it. “We will keep you here for a few more days, until we can remove those bandages. In the meantime, if you need to call your family or your workplace, anything you need, we’ll be happy to accomodate you. You truly are a hero, miss Blake.” dr. Wells smiled warmly, but then his voice turned cold as he glanced at Cisco. “Without you, we wouldn’t have been able to prevent such a stupid, needless tragedy, though it pains me to see you almost paid the price instead.” 

With that he wheeled out of the medbay, followed by the Flash who didn’t say a word as he passed by his friend, and Adrianne looked between them as she noticed the change in the atmosphere. Before she could've asked though, the young man named Cisco stepped closer, looking rather distraught as he approached. “I… I must apologize.” he began, looking at her sadly with his brown eyes. Caitlin, who stayed behind too to check on her bandages, glanced up at him with pity. “The cold gun that you were hit with, it was mine. At the beginning, when we started all this, well, when we first saw what extraordinary powers the Flash had, I wasn’t sure what to expect, so I wanted to have a precaution in case something… went wrong. I made this gun in case he needed to be stopped, and then it was stolen right under my nose. Now B-the Flash,” Cisco choked slightly at his words as he stopped himself from saying the Flash’s true name, which she mercifully overlooked as Caitlin gave him a stern look. “Now the Flash is mad at me and he has every reason to be. It’s my fault that the guard nearly died, and it’s my fault that this happened to you.” he looked down, unable to look her in the eyes, but then he felt a soft touch as she reached over with her good hand to lightly tap his shoulder and smiled at him kindly. 

“It’s alright.” she said. “I think, were I in your shoes, I would have done the same. I mean we live in a crazy world, right?” she chuckled lightly. “I’m sorry if the Flash is angry at you right now, but, I spend some time living in Gotham and trust me, whatever you can imagine that could go wrong is quite possible in that place, so it’s always a wise decision to be careful.” she smiled, and Cisco returned the smile timidly. “So don’t worry about it.” she continued. “If nothing else, trust me, I’m sure there will come a time where you’ll be able to say ‘I told you so’, but right now, if the Flash truly is your friend as much as you are his, he will forgive you.” she sighed tiredly as she laid back down, putting her glasses back on the table. “I think I’m going to sleep a bit more now.” she said as she closed her yes, and Caitlin looked at her kindly, pleased at the way this almost stranger was trying to make her friend feel better, before the two of them left the medbay to let her have some rest.

<***>

Lying beside the train tracks, among the wreckage of the train that Snart just destroyed in an attempt to get himself rid of the Flash, Barry Allen hissed in pain as the cold blast hit his back, covering his middle with ice. He rolled onto his back to look up at his attacker, but it was hard to move at any speed as the burning cold slowly seeped through the fibers of his suit. Snart was looking at him with a serious expression, his eyes behind the protective glasses as cold as the weapon he was holding, and he was about to pull the trigger, when the clear, angry voice of Cisco sounded from behind him, along with the mechanical sounds of a machine powering up. 

It was only thanks to his enormous luck that Snart was, indeed, no mechanical genius, and he didn’t seem to see through Cisco’s ruse as the young scientist waved what was, in fact, just a little embellished vacuum cleaner from one of S.T.A.R. Labs‘ closets and called it a weapon, but it seemed to work as Snart left the scene in peace. He did not, however, relinquish the stolen diamond, and he hardly lost any of that smug expression on his face, which made this victory a lot less glorious than Cisco hoped it would be, but he was still happy, for it seemed that the Flash was, once again, willing to trust him. And as the members of Team Flash celebrated their reunion and their renewed friendship, the thief vanished from the scene, thinking that he managed to get away with his crime. What he didn’t know however is that he was being followed.

About an hour later everyone returned to S.T.A.R. Labs and it seemed like the day was saved. While it was impossible to use the same trick they used before to track down Snart again, Barry, who has indeed finally forgiven Cisco for creating the weapon who put his and other lives at risk in the first place, was confident that they will catch him eventually. However, just as Felicity, their friend from Star City, set out for her journey home and everything seemed to finally calm down, Caitlin walked into the Cortex and, in a slightly worried voice said: „Hey, where’s our guest, Adrianne? She wasn’t supposed to leave the medbay yet...“

Having their hands full with Snart during the last few hours, nobody had any idea how to answer that question, and even dr. Wells, who was, of course, left behind due to his condition, was confused, as he was watching over things in the Cortex all this time, but didn’t see anyone leave the medbay. But before anybody could spring into action, a figure appeared in the doorway. „I’m right here.“ The blonde woman standing there said, as she leaned on the wall, smiling, a small, black bag slumped over her left shoulder as she tried not to put pressure on her right arm.

„Damnit!“ Caitlin shouted angrily as she moved around the console, grabbing the injured limb and checking the bandages carefully. „What were you thinking? You’re still under observation, you can’t just waltz out of here when you feel like it.“ she said accusingly and Adrianne sighed as she looked around the room and saw the rest of the team's shocked and slightly dissapointed faces. „Alright, I’m sorry for scaring you.“ she said apologetically. „But I can make up for this. I actually brought a gift.“ she added, almost proudly, and slowly, she reached into her bag and pulled out an object from the inside. And as she placed the object on the console, everyone gaped at it in wonder and shock. It was the Kahndaq Dynasty diamond.

The Flash recovered first. „That’s the diamond Snart stole!“ he exclaimed. „You got it back?“ he asked, and Adrianne nodded, a little nervously. „Yeah, a may have overheard Cisco telling you that Snart was at the train station, so I may have... borrowed one of S.T.A.R. Labs’ cars and followed you there. I saw the exchange between you and Snart, I saw how Cisco saved you, which was really awesome by the way, and when Snart left, I followed him back to his lair. It’s an old warehouse at the south edge of town, but I doubt he’d still be there, surely he must have realised by now that the diamond was taken by someone.

While everyone was still slightly confused, the looks on their faces turned into happy ones and Cisco even patted her on the shoulder in praise, but it was dr. Wells who decided to voice his concerns, and his voice was nothing short of suspicious. “Well…” he began and everyone turned his attention to him. “As fortunate as this turn of events is, it does warrant at least one important question, doesn’t it?” he said slowly, piercing the young woman with his blue eyes. 

“How exactly did you achieve all this? Miss Blake, I highly doubt that mr. Snart, a criminal of some professionalism, would let such a treasure out of his sight for even a second, and even if he did, getting close enough to take the diamond without being spotted would be nearly impossible, so… what exactly are you not telling us?” Wells asked, looking at her sternly, and as everyone looked at her once again, the same question in their eyes, she sighed and lowered her head slightly. “Ok, there is something I haven’t told you. I… I wasn’t sure how to approach this, but…” she paused. “The thing is, Snart couldn’t see me… I guess it would be better if I just showed you.” she said, and then she closed her eyes and in the next second, she was gone, seemingly vanished into thin air.

“Wow,” exclaimed Cisco, as he carefully waved his hands through the seemingly empty space in front of him until he touched something solid, while Caitlin said in surprise: “No way, you can turn yourself invisible?”

“Not completely invisible, just partially. Look carefully around this area.” Cisco replied as he outlined the figure standing before them slowly. “Fascinating.” spoke dr. Wells, whose face changed from suspicious to intrigued as he wheeled to get a closer look. “It appears that somehow, miss Blake’s body is able to generate some sort of force field around itself that can bend the light in a way that can make her almost invisible to the human eye. You can see where the light bends if you look for it, but if she stands completely still and moves very slowly, it would be easy to miss her being there, even at a close distance. She is, for comparison, sort of like a chameleon… this is truly incredible, miss Blake.” he spoke directly to her as he saw her shift a little. “Am I assuming correctly that you received this incredible ability from the particle accelerator as well?” he asked, and in the next second, she appeared before them again, and she nodded, looking at him with a small smile. 

“That’s right, dr. Wells. I actually moved to Central City shortly before the explosion, and while I couldn’t stay for long, I really wouldn’t miss the launch of your particle accelerator. I’m not an expert on science, but it has always been one of my interests.” she said, and he brushed off the praise as he motioned for her to continue. “Anyway, when the explosion happened, I was in a pharmacy, buying some stuff I needed, when suddenly, the ground shook, and when I looked outside I saw a giant wave of energy as it blasted through the city, and I tried to find some place to hide.” she frowned slightly as she remembered.

“I found myself in a small lab, but then the wave hit, and it knocked me of my feet and I fell straight into a shelf filled with some kind of chemicals, I couldn’t really tell you what was there, but everything spilled right at me, I could feel it burning through my clothes and into my skin, and whatever the mixture was, whatever it did, it made me into this.” she gestured at herself, before she turned towards the Flash with a slightly pleading look in her eyes. 

“When I found out about this, I didn’t know what to do. Eventually, I decided I wanted to use this ability to do good, but I am not a superhero like you, and I was afraid to do this alone. But then, when I saw you in that theatre, when you saved me after I helped that guard, I wanted to do something to help you too, and so I did. And I would like to continue helping you, if you would have me. I know that I’m gonna need training and discipline and responsibility and all that, and I will follow your lead, but you guys here are amazing, and I would really love to be a part of your team.” she stared at the Flash, her eyes cincere as she made her case.

The Flash looked at her for a second, and then, in a gesture of trust, he raised his hands and removed his cowl, showing her his face. “Then welcome to the team, Adrianne. I am Barry Allen.” he smiled and she stared at him in slight surprise. “Hey, I remember you. You ran straight into me the day of the explosion when you tried to chase down that thief.” she spoke, her voice amused, and he suddenly laughed as a look of recognition passed over his face. “Yeah, right, I though you looked a bit familiar. Sorry about that, again. Wow…” he breathed, as he thought about it. “Guess we were really meant to meet, huh?” he smiled and she returned his smile with one of her own, before she laughed happily as she heard Cisco’s excited clapping.

She then shook hands with everyone, accepting their welcomes gratefully, before Caitlin began ushering her back to the medbay for a thorough examination. But right before she left, she couldn’t help but overhear a conversation as dr. Wells spoke to Cisco: “Well, that was a rather fortunate end to your little mishap, wasn’t it?” he said and she turned her head around as she heard the darkened tone of his voice, watched as the older man took hold of Cisco’s arm in a rather steely grip, the look in his eyes even harder. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again, do you understand me?” dr. Wells spoke quietly, and she saw the fear on Cisco’s face as he concurred, and as dr. Wells moved away without saying another word, she stared at him in shock. But then, as Caitlin called after her, she turned, and the corner of her mouth lifted in a small, amused smile.


	2. Chapter 2

Flash: The Serpent’s Tale

Chapter 2.

October, 2014

“And that, my friends, is how the Roman Empire eventually came to an end.” the classroom filled with the sounds of shuffling feet and eager chatter as the students packed their backs and headed for the door. “And please, don’t forget that I am still expecting those assignments I gave you the day after tomorrow and not a day later, if you please.” she said, pointing a finger at one of the students, a black haired boy sitting in the front row. “That goes especially for you, mr. Bradley. I have given you enough concessions as it is.” She gave him a meaningful look, earning a nervous smile in return, and then she left the classroom along with the rest of the students. This was her last class for today and she was happy to finally be able to go home for the night and get some rest.

Arriving at her home, she poured herself a glass of wine and relaxed on the couch, putting her phone on a table next to it, when she suddenly noticed it was vibrating. Picking it up, she looked at the number on the display and her eyebrows raised slightly in surprise, before she pressed the button and put the phone to her ear. “Hello, sir.” she greeted cheerfully. “What can I do for you?” she listened for a minute, her expression turning slightly sour. “Oh, ehm, I am terribly sorry, sir.” she began carefully. 

“You know I always love to work with you, but I actually have something in the works right now, a long term project of mine of sorts that might make me unavailable for a few months. It might depend on me being here next week, so I really am not comfortable leaving right now, unless there’s absolutely no other option for you. I am currently in Central City though, so if there’s something you need done over here…” she paused, as the man on the other side interrupted, and slowly, a soft smile spread across her face again. “Yeah, sure, give me a call once you have everything set up. And thank you very much for your understanding, sir.” she paused again, and this time, her smile was slightly embarrassed, but happy. “Alright, then. I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you again… Lex.” still smiling, she put down the phone. 

She took a sip from her glass, and then she leaned over to the table and picked up a flyer lying there. “Now, let’s see here…” she said musingly, as she stared at the picture of a huge diamond, and the familiar building of Central City Museum.

December, 2014

“Aaalright, come out, come out, wherever you are…” mumbled Cisco to himself as he, in full nerd mode, stalked the lower hallways of S.T.A.R. Labs holding a paintball gun, looking around with his eyes narrowed in concentration, the image even more amusing as he was wearing one of his favourite Star Wars T-shirts, one with a picture of a Stormtrooper shooting from his gun. Next to him was Barry, who was casually standing in the middle of a corridor, this clearly not being his preferred form of training. Barry loved speed, and he loved running, but tonight, the focus was on something entirely else, that is, his talent for being perceptive.

“May I have your attention, please?” came the sound of dr. Wells’ voice in the intercom. “Today we’re trying something a little bit different. Since you have, miss Blake, demonstrated rather efficient skills in combat training with Barry, I decided it would be a nice change in pace if we could see how you would fare in a little game of deception and agility. While your ability to blend in with the environment is a very useful one in itself, it would serve you poorly if you couldn’t pair it up with your own wit, and, most importantly, patience.” he continued as he sat in his wheelchair in the Cortex, watching everything on cameras.

“On the other hand, while speed is always a useful factor in combating your enemies, Barry, it’s hard to use it on someone you cannot see first, so what will be required from you in this task, as difficult as it may be,” the smirk in his voice was clearly audible. “is to slow down, observe the world around you, and listen for anything that might give you the location of your target. Now, miss Blake,” he spoke, and the person he was addressing raised her head to hear everything properly. 

“Your task is to move towards the other end of the hallway you are currently standing in. At the end you will find a small table with a blue ribbon on it. You will have exactly five minutes to get to the ribbon and take it without being spotted by either Cisco, who will be patrolling along the length of the corridor with his gun, or Barry, who will be standing on the other side of the corridor, guarding the ribbon. Then, you have to return to your original position. They will both be looking for you, so you need to be careful.” he instructed, and she nodded, before she closed her eyes, and vanished from sight.

“Now, Barry, Cisco, your task is simple, find her before she can steal the ribbon. I will be observing everything from here, and I can see her,” he said, as he looked at the camera picture, seeing Adrianne’s invisible figure through the added thermovision. “but you can’t, so you need to use not just your eyes, but also your ears, it will be difficult for her to move in such a narrow space without alerting you, so she is bound to make some noise. However, I have also added some obstacles and a slight difference in lighting that should make things a bit more interesting.” he looked at the cameras again, seeing that all the players were ready. “Now, I see miss Blake has assumed her invisible state, starting the countdown now, you can begin.”

Adrianne took a deep breath as the door on the other end of the corridor opened and the two figures of her friends stepped through, with Cisco immediately moving towards her position, his gun at the ready as if he was a soldier in a war zone, preparing to assault an enemy camp. She had only little time to look around and consider her options, before he started to come a little too close for her comfort. It was a long hallway, curved in the typical fashion of S.T.A.R. Labs corridors. Towards the end of the corridor, where Barry was standing, the lighting was dimmed to the point where it was almost dark. In the middle, there was a large table on one side, combined with a chair on the side of it opening into the hallway and a trash can filled with various small objects inside it. 

4:45

She took a deep breath and quickly placed herself against the wall, not moving an inch as Cisco stopped about two meters away from her, scanned the remaining space between himself and the door, turned around and walked back the way he came.

4:10

As she watched him carefully, she stayed close to the way, her body only centimeters from the cold gray surface so she wouldn’t make any noise by rubbing against it, trying to keep up with him as best as she could as she moved her legs slowly so he wouldn’t hear her footsteps.

3:40

She stopped again as Cisco reached the table, bent down to look under it, then continued on his way, while she stayed behind, lowered herself to the ground and slid between the table’s legs to hide in its shadow. Carefully watching Cisco as he made his way over to Barry, who, for the time being, stood there, watching the other, much better lit end of the corridor carefully. She watched as Cisco reached him, blocking his field of vision for a few moments as the two exchanged a few quiet words, and then, she got an idea…

“What is she doing?” asked Caitlin as she watched the cameras, standing next to dr. Wells in the Cortex. The thermovision camera was not telling them much exactly, and dr. Wells narrowed his eyes as he tried to figure it out, but then he smiled. “I believe… she just removed her shoes.” he chuckled. “Not what I was expecting, but alright. Let’s see what she does next. She’s almost half through her time.”

2:50

Keeping her shoes close to her chest so they wouldn’t be seen, she backed out from under the table just as Cisco came back to it, and watched as he passed it by and as he did, he pushed the chair standing next to it deeper under the table, effectively blocking it as her hiding place. She, however, smiled, for that was exactly what she was hoping for. Hiding behind the table, she took one of her shoes and carefully balanced it on the edge of the chair that was hidden from view under the table. And as Cisco moved a sufficient distance away from her, she walked around the table silently, pressed herself to the opposite wall, and, entering the darkened part of the corridor, she moved as quickly as she could without alerting Barry to her presence while she waited.

2:02

Suddenly, there was a loud noise in the hallway as the shoe smacked against the floor as it fell from the chair to the ground, and Barry reacted immediately, zooming through the air to the other side of the table, only to be met with nothing as he grabbed onto thin air. And when he realised what happened and quickly moved back to his original position, the ribbon was already gone.

“Wow, that was clever.” called Cisco appreciatevely as he came from the other side of the room and glanced at the shoe on the ground while Barry looked around, trying to find out where the perpetrator had gone. “But you still have to get to the other side and my girl, you are not getting through me this time.” he said as he fired a round from his weapon, almost hitting Barry as a splash of blue almost ended up on his shirt. “Dude!” called Barry, clearly annoyed as he wiped specks of paint from his hair.

1:40

Adrianne would have laughed at the scene in front of her if she wasn’t thinking so hard as to what to do next. She was, fortunately, able to duck as Cisco fired his weapon, which was good as she knew that something as viscous as paint would disturb her invisibility field enough for them to see it. Now, as she stayed low to the ground and moved forward, she knew she probably didn’t have much more time, but she also knew she had to resist the urge to just run for it, as that would most certainly didn’t end well. Instead, she grinned inwardly as she decided to play a little dirty trick. She moved back along the wall as she, putting the ribbon in her pocket to secure it, almost reached the table where Cisco now stood, his weapon ready, and there, she stopped and stood motionless for a few seconds to calm herself down.

1:07

Cisco was standing opposite of Barry, watching this part of the hallway carefully, but it was very dark and hard to see any details. Suddenly, something flew high up into the air, crashing into the ceiling and then falling right down. Next thing he knew, he felt something metal crushing into him from his side, and instinctively he fired, right as Barry Allen jumped into action, the charge from the weapon hitting him square into his face, causing him to lose his speed and crushing straight into Cisco from almost mid-air. And as the two young men groaned in what was surely going to be a splitting headache later and tried to untangle themselves, only then did they hear the sound of running feet as their female opponent hopped over them, skidding to a halt at her starting point a few seconds later.

0:32

She made herself visible again as she brandished the ribbon from her pocket, showing it to the nearest camera. “I won.” she announced cheerfully, before she went over to help her friends stand, as a slow, impressed clapping sounded from the intercom. “Well, well, miss Blake, that surely was a fascinating thing to watch.” came dr. Wells’ praise. “Though some would say that the last trick you pulled wasn’t exactly the nicest thing to do.” he said, and she laughed, breathing heavily from the exertion. “You wanted a show of cunning.” she replied. “And we all know that our enemies will certainly not play nicely either.”

“What exactly just happened?” spoke Cisco as he came over, still a little dazed, and Adrianne put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, before she sat him down on the chair. “Easy.” she said. “I threw the other shoe into the air, and as you watched it, I hauled the trashcan towards you, it hit you, you fired, and to my enormous luck, it was exactly in the right moment.” she chuckled. “There was actually a lot of luck involved in this whole endeavor.”

“Well, luck or not… That. Was. Awesome.” said Cisco appreciatevely, as he raised his hand to give her a high five. “As a rightful victor of this contest, you get to choose the first movie for next week’s movie night, Adrianne.” he said, mock reverence coating his words, and she laughed, giving a little bow. “That is a prize of all prizes, Cisco, it is an honour to accept it.” she replied with a smile, before grinning. “I hope you all like horror movies, cause there are plenty of scary Christmas related movie gems that I can think of.” she was about to add something else, when suddenly, there was an alarm going off and they all ran into the Cortex to see what was going on. Cisco jumped around the console to look at the monitor. “That’s in Central City National,” he said. “Oh, well, game’s over, suit up, heroes, duty calls.” he called, and Adrianne smirked as the Flash turned to her. “Adrianne, care to help me out there and put those skills of yours to a real test?” he asked and she smiled brightly as he took her hand and together they zoomed away towards the bank.

<***>

The tall silhouette of Mercury Labs stood imposing against the rest of the city’s skyline. It was a stark contrast against the more extravagant appearance of S.T.A.R. Labs, taking a more professional approach to things compared to Harrison Wells’ focus on design as well as functionality when constructing his own facility. However, while S.T.A.R. Labs was now, in the eyes of the public, a thing from the past, Mercury Labs, and it’s owner, dr. Christina McGee, were now the top scientific research facility in Central City, and they were proud of keeping that reputation. There were many secrets and fascinating projects happening inside the building’s laboratories, many of which certain people would pay a lot of money to get their hands on, or simply pay a skilled thief to get it for them.

Outside in Central City the night was slowly setting in, and the labs were locking in for the night, when a silent intruder snuck into the building, making her way through the labs carefully to avoid being seen. She wasn’t here to steal anything tonight, just to look around and get a better knowledge of the building she would be stealing from later, remembering the security measures and possible access points. What she didn’t know, however, is that she wasn’t alone.

Deep inside the building, in an area reserved for the most promising research projects the company was currently working on, was the Superluminal Department, a section of the labs that was currently in the process of working with a technology that could literally catapult them to the forefront of the world’s known science. A scientist, accompanied by two security guards, was just making his way along the corridor, finally ready to get some well deserved rest, when the building’s alarm was suddenly tripped, and as the guards sent their charge to hide in his lab, the scientist watched as they were mercilessly killed by a strange, terrifying force that forced its way past them in a blurry of yellow and red, staring at him through the locked door for a second, before it zoomed away again, radiating anger and rage at its failure, leaving the poor scientist alone with two dead bodies, and a pair of curious eyes, wide in wonder as their owner hid just out of sight.

<***>

“So, do we have any idea what this… Man in Yellow might be after?” asked Adrianne the next day, as Barry and Joe brought the news of the strange night’s events to S.T.A.R. Labs. What started as a simple attempted robbery investigation has quickly turned into something a lot more sinister when it turned out that the man, who many years ago murdered Barry’s mother, appeared again, and, understandably, Barry was noticeably upset, and they were all eager to help as they tried to wrap their heads around it at the same time. “What are they working on in there that could be so valuable to him?”

“Well, here’s something interesting.” said Cisco as he read from his computer. “It says here that dr. McGee, the owner of the place, has secured half a billion dollars in private funding to develop, and I quote ‘prototypes for the technology of the future’.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” dr. Wells smiled, his voice appreciative. “Tina’s messing with tachyons.” he spoke.

“What… tachyons?” Adrianne turned to look at him. “You mean the particles that can travel faster than light?” she asked, and chuckled as everyone in the room turned to her as if she was the biggest weirdo. “What? I read sometimes.” she laughed. “And I do love a good science fiction.” she said, making dr. Wells chuckle. “It is of course a rather fascinating technology that still has a long way to go, but if they managed to construct a working prototype, well, for someone capable of using super speed, such a device would be extremely valuable, having a way to harness that kind of power would allow him to, well, travel faster than light indeed.”

“Which means,” said Barry, sounding more than a little frustrated. “that he’s gonna try to get it again. We need to get that thing from Mercury Labs and use it as a lure to get him instead.”

“And we will.” said dr. Wells reassuringly, a determined look on his face. “Cisco, Caitlin, let’s start engineering a trap.” he said as he wheeled away, followed by both of his employees. A little while later, Barry and dr. Wells left for Mercury Labs to hopefully get the tachyon prototype before the actual trap got finished, and Adrianne, having nothing better to do, went to find Cisco again, eventually finding him in his workshop with Caitlin, just in time to interrupt his rather excited speech.

“... and we’ll have a kick-ass forcefield to trap the Opposite-Flash.” she heard him finish, and, grinning, she stepped through the doorway.

“The Opposite-Flash? Come on, Cisco, that sounds a bit lame.” she laughed and added: “But, if you do want to go for that, how about… reverse?” she narrowed her eyes in thought. “The Reverse-Flash? Straight to the point, has a nice ring to it… what do you think, Caitlin?”

She looked over at her friend, and that was when she noticed that Caitlin didn’t seem to listen to them at all. She looked worried, anxious even, and Adrianne sat down beside her before putting a hand on her shoulder. “Are you ok? What’s wrong?” she asked, and then listened as Caitlin proceeded to tell them about Ronnie, who she supposedly saw as he was stalking her in a parking lot while she went shopping in the city, and about the strange and terrifying condition he was in. She sounded a bit confused, and in slight shock, and Adrianne looked up at Cisco, frowning.

“I thought you said Ronnie died… in the particle accelerator.” she asked him, and he nodded, before looking at Caitlin intently, his expression worried.

“Yes, that’s… he was vaporized in the explosion. Caitlin, it’s not possible for him to be…” he began, but she interrupted, insistent and pleading.

“He’s alive, Cisco. And he’s out there, alone and scared. And I need your help to find him.” at that, Cisco looked a bit at a loss for words, thinking hard, but then he nodded, turning to Adrianne. “Ok, ehm… you should stay here, in case anything happens. Go back to the Cortex, watch the monitors… I don’t know when we’ll be back, so just hold the fort until Barry and dr. Wells come back.

“Sure.” she replied, before Caitlin approached. “And please, Adrianne, don’t say anything to the others yet, I… I need to see him first, I need to see if there’s something we can do.” she pleaded, and Adrianne nodded solemnly, watching them leave.

About an hour later the whole team convened back at S.T.A.R. Labs, and while Adrianne wanted to hear what Cisco and Caitlin had to say about their endeavor first, there was no time as Barry stormed into the Cortex suddenly, looking slightly bashed up, but fortunately not too damaged, and Adrianne listened intently as he recalled the story of his recent encounter with the Reverse-Flash himself. 

It was clear that Barry was freaking out, what with the Reverse-Flash, who was much stronger and faster, playing with him like a cat with a mouse, and so Adrianne was not surprised when, at the end, Joe suggested that he should take a step back from this whole matter, at least until their enemy was safely captured and unable to harm anyone. Barry, of course, wasn’t thrilled at the prospect, but eventually he did as he was told, storming away in an angry manner. A little while later, with the construction of the forcefield generator, which really looked like a weird futuristic time machine or a portal to another world, finally completed, it was time to set up their trap, and wait for the catch.

It was the initial waiting that was, at the end, the hardest, as Adrianne sat there in the Cortex, surrounded by the team and a small number of CCPD officers, along with Eddie Thawne, a young detective with a promising career and Iris West’s current boyfriend, and Joe, all watching the darkened screen, waiting for something to happen. 

And then, it did, and in a flash of red lighting a figure of a man in yellow-black costume flew inside the generator’s chamber, triggering the forcefield, proceeding to try and punch his way out, seemingly without success, and dr. Wells went downstairs with the team of policemen to interrogate the intruder, a smug expression on his face as Caitlin, Cisco and Adrianne continued to watch through the cameras.

It was terrifying to watch the figure just stand there, as the man barely moved, his whole body vibrating, blurring his very features so it was hard to make out any details. As the welcoming squad made their way down there, at dr. Wells’ word Cisco turned on the lights, and they were able to see a bit better, which did nothing to alleviate anyone’s fear. The man in front of them radiated malice and evil intent, and the policemen stood there with their weapons drawn, pointing them at him. And when he spoke, his voice was an unnatural growl as it too were masked by his vibrating vocal cords. The Reverse-Flash was trapped, and yet he didn’t seem worried at all, and he didn’t seem interested in anyone else but dr. Wells.

“I’m not like the Flash at all.” the speedster said, as dr. Wells tried to bait him into revealing any useful information. “Some would say I’m the reverse.”

In the Cortex, Cisco scoffed slightly as he glanced over at Adrianne. “I guess your idea is going to stick after all.” he said quietly, and she smiled slightly as she watched the screens. She stood there, looking slightly confused, her brow furrowed as she kept looking from dr. Wells to the Reverse-Flash and back, but her companions were too busy staring at the scene happening in front of them as well to notice. At the end, she shook her head slowly. “This is fascinating.” she said, obviously not intending to say that out loud, as she raised her head to look at Cisco immediately, but he didn’t look at her at all, his eyes not leaving the sight they were currently witnessing. “That’s not the word I’d use.” he just mumbled. “Why do his eyes shine like that? It looks… super evil.”

Adrianne was about to reply, when suddenly, she noticed that the energy readings on Cisco’s screen became red, the forcefield’s energy levels suddenly collapsing, and the next thing they knew, the Reverse-Flash grabbed dr. Wells from his wheelchair and in a surreal display of violence he started beating him up with frightening ferocity.

Joe, ever the man of action, immediately set out to destroy the generator, not willing to sacrifice a man’s life in order to keep their enemy trapped, but just then, there was a flash of red and gold as their own, Scarlet Speedster stormed into the cellar, running into the Reverse-Flash just as the forcefield powered down completely, slamming into the still vibrating speedster, who suddenly stopped, stared at him for a second then zoomed out the room, leaving the tachyon device behind. In a burst of speed, Barry followed immediately, and Joe, after glancing briefly at dr. Wells on the ground, seeing that the man didn’t look too seriously harmed, ran after them with the rest of his force.

Outside, as before, Barry tried his best to subdue the Reverse-Flash, but the other man was just too fast, too strong, and too experienced, and in light of losing his chance to grab the tachyon device, the Reverse-Flash put all his anger into his fists as he slammed the Flash into the ground repeatedly. Just as he came back, however, preparing to deliver another blow, there was a stream of fire coming straight at him, blowing into his face as it knocked him backwards. It was Ronnie, coming to Barry’s rescue, and everyone watched in awe as he stood there, his handsome, but raggedy looking face and his hands framed by raging fire. The Reverse-Flash stood up slowly, not at all shaken as he recovered, and with a mocking promise of his return, he stormed away, along with Ronnie, who flew away the opposite way.

Exhausted and not at all feeling very victorious, everyone went back inside. Dr. Wells was, fortunately, alright, and the tachyon device was saved, with Eddie volunteering to take it back where it belonged before they all met back at Joe’s house to hopefully catch some Christmas spirit. Caitlin took care of dr. Wells’ wounds, the man’s face full of scratches and bruises, though his pride was probably hit a lot harder, and dr. Wells promised to find Ronnie, whatever it took, which finally brought a genuine smile to Caitlin’s face. Everything started to finally calm down, and now it was time to celebrate together as the day was coming to an end.

<***>

Speeding along the busy streets, with the people coming home from whatever last Christmas shopping and work assignments they had to attend to, a young woman was driving her car to get to her destination and deal with what she had to do before her absence was a little too long. She was tired and excited at the same time, and she knew that last night’s events would stay with her for a long time, as well as what she was about to do still. She didn’t have time to plan much ahead, and everything now depended on timing, as well as a lot of luck, but fortunately, she usually had plenty of that at least.

Suddenly, her phone rang, and she put it to her ear as her soft voice filled the empty space of the car. “Yes, sir… sorry, Lex?” she asked gently, and listened as the man on the other side spoke. Then, she grinned. This was exactly what she needed. “You’re in luck. I’m on my way there now. Please, tell your agent to meet me in an hour at Leroy’s Café at McLane Avenue. I’ll try to be there on time.” putting the phone down, she frowned in concentration as she thought about what she was going to do next, and, arriving to her destination finally, she took a deep breath, and set her plans in motion.

<***>

It was a lovely evening on Christmas Eve, snow was falling gently outside, and everyone was enjoying the party at Joe’s house, well, everyone, except for the Reverse-Flash. Eobard Thawne, or rather, dr. Harrison Wells, as he was currently masquerading as, was not in a mood for celebrating. His damaged speed was acting up again, causing his still rather mortal body not to heal at the rate it usually would have, and he was still feeling rather sore from both his previous escapade, and the unexpected attack from Caitlin’s not-so-dead-after-all husband afterwards. 

It would have been worth it, of course, if only Barry had just did as he was told and stayed out of things tonight. His presence at S.T.A.R. Labs has complicated the delicate operation and on top of that, made him lose the access to what would undoubtedly help him to get a little ahead of his schedule and better prepare for the inevitable confrontation. Not that he had any doubts that he was going to win his right to go home, back to his own time where he belonged, but still, this little setback was an irritating one, no doubt Mercury Labs would now keep their precious tachyon device on lockdown and right now, he was in no condition to go breaking in there again anyway.

As he wheeled down the corridor to his Time Vault though, so he could consider his next move, he suddenly stopped as something in the atmosphere, some strange lingering static current, barely discernible but for a speedster, caught his attention, and with his eyes narrowed in suspicion he took off his glasses before touching the wall lightly to open the secret room. The door opened smoothly as always and revealed the hidden space beyond them, and, at first, there was nothing that seemed out of place, before he actually entered the room and peered around the corner to look at the plinth where Gideon’s interface was stored.

There, sitting neatly next to the little pedestal, was a box, a plain, simple, closed but not sealed box, and he stared at it in momentary surprise, before he cautiously stepped closer, carefully picking the box up and peering inside. For someone who knew Eobard Thawne, looking at him now would be amusing, because there was very little in this universe that could take the speedster from the future of guard. But this certainly did.

“Gideon?” he called out to summon the AI, and her holographic head appeared before him immediately. “Yes, dr. Wells?”

“How did this package get here?” he asked her, nodding to the box in his hands as he stared at what was inside. It was the tachyon device, brand new, not a single scratch on it, the design clearly the same as the one from Mercury Labs. “Where did it come from?” he asked as the wheels in his head began to turn. “I am not quite sure, doctor. I believe it was delivered here approximately two hours ago.”

Her response made him frown. “What do you mean, ‘you’re not sure’? Can’t you pull up the security recording from the previous two hours?” he asked, and the head disappeared to show a picture of the hallway and the Time Vault before both cameras suddenly went offline for a short while. “Unfortunately, it appears that both cameras covering this chamber have been incapacitated by a low level EMP wave that disabled my security systems for approximately 10 seconds. Whoever has come to place the object here has used that time to get in and out of here unseen. I am sorry, doctor Wells.”

“That’s alright, Gideon.” he said calmly, and then, thinking for a second, he added: “Scan the device for explosives or any other destructive measures.”

“The tachyon device does not appear to have been altered in any way.” Gideon replied in her passive, mechanical voice. “Curious.” replied Thawne, and gently lifted the contraption from the box. He was about to throw the box away, when he noticed a small piece of paper that was previously stuck beneath the tachyon device so it wasn’t visible. It was a small card with two words scribbled in big black letters that simply read: Merry Christmas, and Eobard Thawne stared at the text in wonder.

“It seems that our mysterious intruder came to give us a present.” he said, shaking his head. “An interesting conundrum, but we can try to solve it later. Now, let’s see what this can do.” he said, his voice almost excited as he took the tachyon device and moved over to where his yellow suit was mounted on a stand, before he pressed the device onto the suit’s chest, the mechanical parts locking in place. And as he felt his suit and the very air around it pulse and hum with tachyonic energy, the Reverse-Flash smiled, the lips of a long dead man twisting up in a soft grin. “Merry Christmas.” he mumbled in the distorted voice of his supervillain alter ego. “Merry Christmas indeed.”

<***>

A little while earlier, in a small café on the other side of town, a young woman was casually lounging on a chair, sipping a latté as she glanced around the room carefully, tapping her foot a little impatiently as she waited. A few minutes later a man, dressed in a suit, entered the café and, locking her eyes with her, he immediately went over to sit beside her at her table. “Greetings, miss, it’s been a while since we last spoke.” he said, in a hushed but rather friendly voice, and she smiled at him. “Yes, and sadly, I can’t stick around. I’m supposed to be somewhere.” she added, as she reached into a small black bag at her side. “Here,” she said, pulling out a small package. “this is what your boss asked for. I hope he finds a good use for it.”

Her companion took the package from her and delicately placed it in a small suitcase. “Much obliged. Mr. Luthor would be pleased that you managed to get this so quickly.” he said, and then he took an envelope from the suitcase and handed it to the woman on the other side of the table, who proceeded to look inside with a pleased expression on her face. 

“The Serpent is always efficient in fulfilling her contracts,” she said with a grin, “if one way doesn’t work, she just finds another one. Besides, coincidentally, this played right into my own plans as well. Mr. Luthor and I are not the only ones who benefit from my labour tonight.” she continued, glancing at her watch. “Ok, I really have to go now. Thank you for the business and please tell you boss not to hesitate to call upon me again.” she shook the man’s hand, and then she was gone.

<***>

“I thought you were going to choose a horror movie.” said Cisco in confused surprise, and his slightly dissapointed voice was a source of amusement for everybody as everyone settled into their seats. It was now a day after Christmas, and, just as agreed, the team at S.T.A.R. Labs decided to use that time to have a special, Christmas related screening of their favourite movies. Even dr. Wells seemed to be in surprisingly good spirits and joined them, parking his wheelchair between Barry and Cisco as he claimed a large box of popcorn for himself.

“Well, I wanted to originally, but I decided I’d rather bless you all with one of the funniest movie experiences I ever had.” she said, as she opened the dvd box of one of her all time favourites, Christmas Vacation. “I mean if one of you doesn’t know this one, you have no idea what you’ve been missing all this time.” she laughed as the movie slowly loaded, and stopped by dr. Wells on the way to her seat. “I’m really glad you joined us.” she smiled kindly. “We really missed you at the party yesterday.”

“Yes, well, I can’t stay holed up all Christmas, can I?” he said, and then he looked around at his team, taking in their faces and the way they smiled at him in appreciation. “I wanted to tell you all how thankful I am for all the support you have given me over the last year. I know I probably wouldn’t win the best boss of the year award, even before… what happened.” he paused, his brow furrowed in remembrance. “But I want you to know how much I appreciate you staying with me through all of it. You helped me carry on even when I didn’t know if there was a way to do that, so, thank you. I promise I will do my best to deserve it.” he spoke, and Caitlin stood up, almost teary eyed, and went over to put her hand on his arm.

“You’ve done plenty for all of us too, dr. Wells.” she smiled and the room around them was filled with many hums of agreement, before everyone sat back down, and Adrianne, staring at the scene in front of her, her eyes shining with emotion, pressed the play button happily. And as the movie finally started and everyone was having a good time, she kept throwing careful grances in dr. Well’s direction, watching him carefully as if she wanted to figure out the greatest mystery in the universe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello and welcome to another chapter of this story. This chapter is based on Flash Back, one of my favourite episodes in season 2, and considering all the time travel involved, it was very interesting to write. :) I have been, for the last two chapters and this one, dancing around the subject of who my character actually is, the big reveal comes in the next chapter, but right now I hope you enjoy this one. :)

Flash: The Serpent’s Tale

Chapter 3.

January 26, 2015

“Cisco, can you come and take a look at this? I’m not sure I understand the schematics properly.” Adrianne said, slightly nervous as she stood at a table at Cisco’s workshop, helping him put together some new improvements for Barry’s suit. They’ve been doing that for a few weeks now, whenever she had the time, she would be helping him out as a sort of an assistant. He didn’t really need one, but she asked if she could help, and he accepted, which genuinely brought a smile to her face. She liked to spend time with the man. They were about the same age, and though she wasn’t as scientifically or technically inclined, they shared a love for a lot of nerdy stuff others would describe as childish, and she loved his gentle, kind nature and the way he was always ready to spread his cheer and enthusiasm.

So, right now, she was happily tinkering around with a screwdriver as she tried to put together a new headset for Barry’s comms. It was a simple enough job, and yet she still felt a need to make Cisco examine everything she did to make sure everything was as it should be. She was, after all, a guest in his workshop. “Hmm,” he hummed as he looked at the headpiece, fingering the small, lightning shaped device carefuly, before speaking. “It’s a fine job, don’t worry. We just have to tighten this a little bit.” he said, twisting a screw, his tongue sticking out of his mouth slightly in concentration. “There, that’s better. Wouldn’t want that to accidently come undone in the middle of his run, now, would we?”

“You mean that everybody would see just how many of Barry’s screws are a little loose?” she said quickly, earning a booming laugh from Cisco as he patted her on the back. “Yeah, that’s it.” he said, catching his breath. “Wow, I haven’t had such a good laugh in a while.” he smiled as they both basked in the comradeship between them. “I wish I could have brought you in as my assistant when Hartley Rathaway was still around. He would have had an aneurysm probably and made my life a living hell, but it would be totally worth it seeing the look on his face.” he said, adding a bitter laugh, and the tone of his voice, betraying his obvious dislike for whoever he was talking about, piqued Adrianne’s interest as she asked, curious:

“Who’s Hartley Rathaway?”

January 27, 2015

“So, that’s Hartley Rathaway?” came the question next day as Adrianne stared at the picture displayed on the screen. The man in the picture looked handsome, and his sharp eyes clearly showed a great intellect, but they were also really cold, and the look on his face was one of arrogance and a good dose of egocentrism. “I don’t like him.” she said as she turned away from the monitors.

It seemed kinda ironic now that they were talking about him just yesterday and now the not so very liked former colleague of her friends showed up to spoil their lives. It was early in the morning when they learned what happened the previous night, right after they all went home late in the night after Barry successfully caught a dangerous motorcycle gang, and they all rushed to dr. Wells’ home to make sure their mentor was alright. Adrianne, just as the rest of the team, was slightly stunned at first as she stared around the luxurious looking house that dr. Wells owned, but then followed the others in concern as she saw the mess of the broken glass from the windows on the floor. Barry and Joe were already on the scene, as well as a dozen other police officers as they tried to find some evidence as to who was responsible for the attack. It was only when the team was back in the safety of S.T.A.R. Labs that dr. Wells told them the truth as to who assaulted him in his home that night.

“Well he wouldn’t like you, that’s for sure.” mumbled Cisco, but then his eyes widened slightly in apology as she shot him a mildly hurt look. “No, it’s not you. It’s just that you are far too kind and understanding a person for him to ever get along with you. Like I told you yesterday, me and Caitlin were really hoping to never see that guy again.”

“You and Caitlin?” Adrianne asked incredulously as she smiled in good humour, and Cisco shrugged as he returned that smile. “Well, everyone knows he was kinda dr. Wells’ favourite. The chosen one. That’s how he referred to himself.” he said and Adrianne nodded her head slowly, pursing her lips as she did so. “Oh, I see.” she said, her voice amused as she glanced over at dr. Wells, who smirked slightly in embarrassment. “Come on, Cisco, you know it wasn’t like that. Playing favourites isn’t really my thing. I just like to surround myself with people with exceptional talents.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that Hartley was a jerk most of the time, except for the moments when he was being a total dick.” said Cisco, and his voice broke the tension in the room slightly as it forced a wave of laughter from Joe. “Alright,” the detective said. “Still, if you were so close, why would he target you?” he asked, and dr. Wells shifted his attention to him. 

“Hartley left S.T.A.R. Labs about a year ago after we had a… disagreement.” There was a slight hesitation in his voice as he explained warily, and Adrianne stared at the scene as she watched Joe West narrow his eyes in suspicion. “About what?” he questioned, and Adrianne looked on as she noticed a slight tension between the two men. Before dr. Wells had a chance to reply though, Barry, as if sensing a coming conflict, jumped in and pulled Joe out of the door as he headed back to the station to process what they found at the house.

As the two left, the rest of the team remained at S.T.A.R. Labs, partially because none of them felt particularly willing to leave dr. Wells alone under these circumstances. And that was when the normal, rational part of the day ended and things got a little crazy. It started with a blaring alarm as Hartley, now calling himself the Pied Piper, went to attack his parents’ company, smashing the building’s windows and the surrounding cars with powerful sonic blasts from some kind of gauntlets. Barry raced over there straight from the precinct and that’s when things started to get weird. As the team sat there and listened to Hartley’s boasting over the radio, the comms suddenly went haywire, crackling with some unexpected interference, and everyone freaked out as the Flash went offline for a few minutes.

A little while later though, Barry dragged Hartley back to S.T.A.R. Labs and the team went to have a chat with him in the pipeline. There, Barry surprised everybody, when he unexpectedly guessed Hartley’s plan, which was quite evident from the look in their prisoner’s eyes when he instructed Cisco to check for any electromagnetic signals coming from the devices in Hartley’s ears that were, according to the man’s words, simply meant to ease the pain he felt without wearing them, but that could actually be used as simple bombs.

As Cisco and Caitlin made sure that there were no other tricks up Hartley’s sleeves and the whole situation seemed to calm down, Barry followed dr. Wells as he wheeled his way back into the Cortex. Adrianne sat there, keeping an eye on things as she watched the monitors, but when she saw Barry, she looked up at him cheerfully. “Hi, Barry.” she spoke, smiling at him. “That was pretty perceptive of you back there with Hartley. I watched it from here.” she said, indicating towards a monitor on the wall.

Barry stopped as he heard her voice, staring at her, and she raised her eyebrows slightly at the way he seemed to be lost in thought for a bit, some strange expression passing over his face before he composed himself and, shaking his head, he spoke: “Yeah, ehm, yeah, sorry, I just remembered something.” he said, forcing a smile on his face. “I guess I’m getting better at understanding my enemies.” he added, and before Adrianne could say anything else, he turned around and walked away without saying another word. She shot a questioning look at dr. Wells, who just shrugged as he followed his young protégé, and she watched, being discreetly quiet as Barry began scribbling on one of the glass walls.

She wasn’t quite sure what they were talking about, but she could hear dr. Wells’ words, and though she couldn’t see his expression from where she was sitting, the tone of his voice was one of intrigue, and a slight, barely concealed suspicion. And when dr. Wells straightened himself up in his wheelchair and she could see Barry visibly tense as he tried not to give off any reaction, her own eyes narrowed at his strange behavior. Then, suddenly, there was an alarm going off at the police station and when Barry, the same Barry who would have, in any other situation, already raced over there to deal with whatever threat has showed up this time, actually showed reluctance to go, she finally broke the silence.

“That was… weird. What has gotten into him today?” she spoke, and dr. Wells turned to her with a contemplative look, for he’s been asking himself the same question for a while now. There were too many weird occurrences around Barry today indeed, first the strange malfunction of his comms, then his rather precise observation in the pipeline. It would have seemed like Barry was just exceptionally perceptive, if the action didn’t seem just a little bit too random. And then, when Barry, quite out of the blue, asked him about a speed equation that he’s been working on to help him run faster, one that he hasn’t mentioned not even once before, well, somebody was bound to figure the truth out soon.

After the Flash left for the police station, he went into his Time Vault to check on his cameras, watching Barry carefully as he interacted with Joe and Eddie. Barry seemed… out of sorts somewhat, almost rattled by something, with the strange way he was acting around everybody. It was then when the idea finally popped into his head, what really did it, though, was the Time Wraith. These terrifying spectre-like guardians of time were something Future Barry did not take into account, simply, because, in his inexperience, he didn’t know about them, but the Reverse-Flash did, and while everything else could have been just a series of strange coincidences, the presence of a Time Wraith was a clear indication that there was another time traveller in their midst.

And so it was for that reason that a little while later, Barry from the future woke up, only to find himself cuffed to dr. Wells’ wheelchair in the middle of the Time Vault after he stupidly turned his back on the Reverse-Flash and allowed himself to be knocked out. As he came to, he saw Eobard Thawne sitting on a simple white plastic chair, the same one that he must have sat in God knew how long ago. 

The villain sat there casually, one leg crossed over the other, but it was quite apparent that the Reverse-Flash was getting slightly agitated by the way this day seemed to progress. Being visited by two incarnations of the Flash from a future that was obviously not terribly affected by any of his actions, and, on top of that, with the older Flash seemingly having no respect for Eobard whatsoever, it was no surprise that the speedster in yellow was not eager to coddle the one that has currently awoken from his little beauty sleep right in front of him.

He smiled as the Flash looked at him, and it was incredible to watch the tiny swell of panic as it flickered in those green eyes, before the Flash visibly settled on what was obviously supposed to be Barry Allen being surprised at his mentor’s sudden strange behavior. An hour ago he might have even believed it, but obviously, it was too late for this particular Flash to try and fool him now. And when he zoomed out of the chair, stopping just in front of the younger man without gaining barely more than a flinch, he knew that they both could stop pretending.

“You know who I am, don’t you?” he asked, and he could see the moment Barry shifted back from his pathetic attempt at impersonating his younger, naive self into the man he was now, a man whose life seemed to be deeply affected by the secrets and the betrayal, whatever way that part of their destiny went, he could see it in the way those eyes stared at him coldly, the way his body suddenly tensed as it lay in the awkward position on the floor. This man, still a boy really, looked so similar to the one Eobard worked so hard to bring up, but this Barry’s eyes were filled with only hatred, not as strong as in the one he spoke with before, but it was already there for sure.

“Let me out of here, Thawne.” the Flash said icily, following a frustrated scoff as he tried unsuccessfully to phase through the bonds. And yet, the moment he spoke that breathy syllable, a part of Eobard shivered in silent pleasure at hearing his name once again. It seemed that after fifteen years he couldn’t get enough of the sound, even when it was said with so much bitterness that spoke volumes of the things that were still supposed to happen between them.

“Why are you here?” his whisper turned into a hiss as the Reverse-Flash started to get impatient, and as the one before him, this Barry too began with his absurd request for help, as if there was a chance Eobard would ever just help him like that. This Flash was different from the previous one though, for as he spoke, underlying his foe’s achievements in twisting the Speed Force to his own needs, his voice changed slightly in what Eobard could have sworn was a hint of admiration. He sounded almost like a student devoted to his mentor again, but if the Flash thought this would be enough to soften him up, he was sorely mistaken.

As the Reverse-Flash paced in front of his captive, thinking about everything he learned from the brief visit of the older Flash, he realised two things. First, that he must have been alive sometime in the far future, for there was no way Flash’s young daughter, a sweet child for sure, but certainly no genius, could have come up with something so clever as the plan her father presented to him. Two, it occured to him that the older Barry never actually bothered to tell him what happened and why he was still alive to have a daughter in the first place, and so he decided to play with this younger one a bit, in order to divulge some useful information.

“No. No, no, no, no, no.” he spoke, his voice deadly quiet. “No. You’d only come here if something went wrong. And if you’re still alive, that means…” he paused. “I haven’t beaten you. If you’re still alive, that means my plan fails.” his voice cracked slightly in what sounded like despair and Barry winced as the man who could literally end his life with one hand, kicked the chair in growing anger. “And if my plan fails, I don’t get to go home,” Thawne suddenly raised his voice as he moved quickly to where Barry was. “and if that’s the case, well then…” he shouted and raised his vibrating hand into the air, prepared to strike.

“No, no, no! It’s the opposite!” cried Barry in the last second as he raised his own hand to stop him. “It’s the opposite.” he spoke quickly so Thawne wouldn’t catch on to his lies, or rather, half-truths really, as he explained what was originally Thawne’s plan to use his speed to go home, which was perhaps the reason why the man believed him at all. In the face of such anger, Barry was surprised how he managed to stay calm and keep his voice so clear and certain of what he was saying, but it seemed to work as Thawne slowly calmed down, even though he still remained suspicious. He stared at him for a long time, before he must have decided that Barry was too scared to speak anything but the truth now.

“Then why are you here? Why are you here now?” Thawne asked, his voice still holding a dangerous edge to it, and so Barry went on explaining, another half-truth, that a singularity has opened above the city right after he was gone, a singularity that he wasn’t able to stop unless he found a way to run much faster than he was able to now. There was no need to overcomplicate things by telling him about Zoom, especially since Thawne might decide to not help him at all, but a problem that might cause destruction to the whole planet, and therefore, his own future, that was something that Thawne would be interested in stopping for his own sake.

Except it seemed that Thawne had a slightly different opinion on the situation. Perhaps he thought that now that he knew, he would be able to stop the singularity from happening altogether, but as Barry allowed himself to let out the breath he was holding in relief, he watched as Thawne lifted the chair and put it back to its place slowly, and, the threat to his life now gone, an amused smirk returned back to his face and his voice as he said: “There’s just one thing that occurs to me now.” He turned around to look at Barry, his eyes twinkling with mirthful cruelty. “I don’t need you, do I? Not this you certainly.” The Reverse-Flash laughed as he stalked towards his prey like a tiger. “Shame… you ran all the way back here… just to die.” he said slowly, but this time, the Flash hid his emotions behind his own anger at the man as he went for a simple bluff.

“You kill me, Barry, this Barry, your Barry…” he gestured towards the door and the world outside, where his younger version was still blissfully unaware of anything, unless somebody did something stupid. “he learns it all. There’s a hidden letter telling him how it ends, how to beat you, who you’re working with, everything.” there was a brief flash of confusion and then the Reverse-Flash frowned as he stared at him silently, his brow furrowed in thought. He probably knew that Barry was bluffing, but he couldn’t be sure, and he knew he couldn’t risk it, so, without a word, he moved away, and sat back into the chair, staring at the Flash hatefully as the younger speedster presented his demands.

<***>

Meanwhile, around the labs, the rest of the team was trying to use their time to take care of some of their responsibilities, but it was not meant to last for long, as the Time Wraith was truly relentless, and, quite unstoppable in its pursuit of the Scarlet Speedster. While Cisco tried to convince Harley to tell him about the gauntlets, Caitlin stayed in her lab to finish a few things she’s been working on and Adrianne still sat in the Cortex, a book next to her as she scribbled some notes into her notebook. A few minutes later, however, the labs filled with shrieks and shouts as the terrifying creature flew into the building and attacked, and Caitlin and Adrianne sprinted towards the pipeline, practically jumping into the open cell as Cisco locked them in.

Adrianne breathed heavily from the short burst of speed, and when she calmed down enough to realise what just happened, she looked around the small confined space, her eyes landing on Hartley. This was actually the first time she saw the man from up close, and she had to smile as she did. He looked a lot different then what she saw on the picture before, this roguish hoodie appearance suiting him a lot better than an actual suit. 

“Hi, I’m Adrianne. Kinda new around here. Nice to meet you.” she said quickly, and that was all she managed to get out before the specter outside rammed into the cell’s door, and while it didn’t seem like it could pass through it, the cracks appearing on the door’s surface were terrifying. Then Hartley surprisingly saved them all by using the gauntlets to chase the creature away and Adrianne had to admit, despite everything she heard about him, he seemed like a really cool guy.

When it finally seemed like the monster was gone and the coast was clear, the team opened the cell again, leaving Hartley behind with some reluctance, and they all returned back to the Cortex. “Ok, so, appearantly, whatever that thing is, it doesn’t like loud sounds.” said Adrianne as she sagged back into her chair. “Yeah,” agreed Cisco. “the gauntlets certainly seemed to work on it. And we would have been toast now if Hartley didn’t help us, you know.” he said, not so subtly, and Adrianne would have rolled her eyes if she herself wasn’t inclined to agree with him. Dr. Wells, however, was not so eager to let the troublemaker run around his labs yet as he wrote it off as mere self-preservation. 

Barry, on the other hand, did not share his opinion on the matter as he seemed really concerned by the way the specter was hunting him in particular for some reason. Adrianne watched him cautiously, glancing between him and dr. Wells as they both looked quite worried. Dr. Wells had a thoughtful, almost faraway expression on his face as if he was thinking about something deeply. 

“We need to find a more permanent solution to this problem.” he finally said. “Start by repairing the gauntlets.” he ordered, and the three of them got up from their chairs while Barry stayed behind with dr. Wells. As she was leaving, Adrianne threw one final glance at him, their eyes meeting for the first time properly, and as she turned around to follow Cisco and Caitlin out of the room, her eyes narrowed as she finally figured out the truth.

<***>

Eobard Thawne sighed in annoyance as Barry whizzed out of the door to return to the police station, sitting back in his wheelchair as he suddenly felt really tired. His recent argument with Barry has reminded him how irritating it was to interact with him in the far future, before he travelled into the past and everything fell apart. The Barry Allen he knew back there was an arrogant prick, always thinking himself to be the smartest when he didn’t have any idea what he was doing, and this younger version of him was starting to resemble him a little too closely, even though not as much as the one he met earlier today. This whole experience was surreal and frustrating and in the last fifteen years he didn’t miss it in the slightest. At this point he was just hoping he’d be able to kick this version of his arch enemy out of his timeline soon so he could go back to his plan.

Suddenly, there was a sound of hurried footsteps as Adrianne stepped though the doorway, holding her phone as she made her way over to him. “I’m terribly sorry, dr. Wells.” she began, looking somewhat concerned. “I just received a call from my work, it’s an emergency, I’m supposed to get there immediately. I feel terrible about this, but would it be ok if I left for a few hours?” she looked at him like she really didn’t want to go anywhere, and he smiled at her reassuringly. 

“Of course, we’ll be fine here. You just take care of what you need to do.” he said, and she smiled. “Thank you, dr. Wells.” she spoke, and then she paused. “You know, sometimes I feel kinda bad that I can’t contribute to the team a bit more. I’m doing my best really, but I’m not a scientist and, well… I’m sorry that I can’t always keep up with the rest of you.”

“Miss Blake, you don’t have to feel bad about that.” Eobard spoke kindly, putting a hand on her shoulder, and she smiled as she felt his gentle touch. “Your very presence here has been a boon to all of us, and I daresay that you’ve grown considerably as well in the last few months you spent here. Cisco is always glad to have you in the workshop with him, and you’ve helped Barry in more than a few missions. You are as valuable as anyone else here, Adrianne.” he used her name this time, and she beamed at the praise, before she hurriedly left the Cortex, and Eobard Thawne stared after her with a soft smile playing at his lips. While he hasn’t known her as long as he knew Cisco and Caitlin, this kind, gentle soul has become almost as dear to him as they did, and, for this instance, he thought about the inevitable moment he would have to leave his little family behind, perhaps as a friend, perhaps as an enemy. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to dwell on though, and so he chose to concentrate on the more pressing matters instead.

<***>

“I’m sorry, Iris, I can’t make it to Jitters today.” Barry spoke into his phone, feeling a little guilty pretending to be… well, himself. “There was an… incident at the precinct, I’ll tell you about it later, right now I kinda have my hands full. Yeah, see you later. Bye.” he said, and sighed as he put the phone back into his pocket. He forgot how stressful it was having to lie to Iris about everything again. Standing in his lab at the precinct he suddenly stopped though as he heard the soft sound of the door being opened. He turned around to see who was coming, and stared in confusion as there was no one standing there, before suddenly, he heard a voice right behind him.

“You know, I was actually surprised that he didn’t kill you. I mean, it couldn’t have been a very pleasant surprise seeing you alive, since you’re supposed to be, well, ideally dead in the future.” said a voice from a dark corner of the room. The voice was soft, friendly, but not without a certain degree of mockery coating it. He turned to look at the person standing there, and frowned. “How did ‘you’ figure it out?” he asked, his voice guarded.

“Oh, please.” the dark silhouette spoke, taking a few steps forward. “Ever since ‘you’ returned from apprehending mr. Rathaway, you’ve been looking at me like I was a plague rat.” This was followed by a short, bitter laugh. “Not mentioning all the weirdness happening around you. So it’s not surprising at all that he saw through you almost immediately. You really need to work on your subtlety, mr. Allen.” A pause. “So, how come you’re still alive?”

“Yeah, well, quick thinking, remember?” The Flash countered. “I’ve been getting better at talking my way out of things.” he said, glaring into the shadows. “What are you doing here? You know, I should be throwing you in the pipeline at S.T.A.R. Labs right now. Or better yet, Iron Heights.”

“Oh, please, Iron Heights is a luxury hotel, if you really want to punish me, try Blackgate.” the intruder laughed. “That would truly be a mortifying experience. But you’re not going to do anything like that now, cause you don’t want to mess up the timeline.” the tone of the voice changed back into serious again. “Which is exactly the reason why I’m here. I need to know what you told him.” suddenly, there was a pair of eyes looking at him intensely.

“Actually, I was wondering about that.” Barry said thoughtfully. “I basically said I knew he wasn’t working alone, and he honestly didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. I thought you would have told him from the start, but…” he suddenly turned back to the person sharply. “Oh, I see now.” he laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “He doesn’t know about you at all, does he? You didn’t tell him…” stopping, he corrected himself. “you haven’t told him yet, because you’re afraid. You’re afraid he might kill you before you have a chance to explain yourself. Well, that’s hilarious.” he voiced, earning a quiet glare from the corner, before there was a sigh, half annoyed, half in resignation.

“Yes, you’re right, I won’t deny that.” the voice spoke next. “And I don’t suppose you would tell me how I did tell him in the end even if you knew.” Another sigh, then there was the sound of footsteps as the person made their way around the room back to the door. “Well, never mind. I am confident that an opportunity will present itself eventually. Still, he already knows there’s someone else in the game, so I guess you haven’t done much damage. Thank you for your discretion, mr. Allen.” this time, there was a sense of finality as the person opened the door to leave. “I hope you get what you came here for.” the voice spoke for one last time, and then disappeared with a click of the door.

<***>

Some time later, Adrianne walked back into the Cortex, holding a pile of papers in her hands, stopping in visible surprise as she saw not only one Barry Allen in there, but two. The moment she walked in they both raised their head to look at her almost simultaneously, which was a little freaky, and she looked around the rest of the room before speaking wearily. “Alright,” she began. “What did I miss?”

“Oh, nothing much.” spoke Cisco jokingly. “Just a little case of Back to the Future.” he quipped, and she looked between the two Barry’s, before her eyes settled on the one who was currently wearing their Flash’s red embled. “You’re from the future?” she said, her voice surprised as she scoffed, and dr. Wells wheeled over to explain the situation further. 

“Yes, indeed, miss Blake. Appearantly that strange specter was not after our Barry at all. It’s more of a case of an inexperienced time travel here.” he said, his voice slightly snippy and she raised her eyebrows as Future Barry made a face at his words. “So, that means it’s possible for you to time travel?” She glanced at their own Barry and nodded in appreciation, smiling as she saw the excited look in his eyes. “Wow, that’s… that’s awesome.”

Suddenly though, there was a beeping noise from one of the monitors and Cisco gasped as he ran to look at it. “Ok, our satellite has finally found our floating friend. It’s coming back.” There was a shadow moving across the monitor as it flew towards the very building they were in. And it was flying fast. 

There was no time to figure things out right now though, and so, having the knowledge he sought in his possession, Future Barry set out on his journey home, the Time Wraith still at his heels. And as he vanished in the swirling mass of blue light, he was watched by several minds who, secretly, breathed a sigh of relief at his departure.

<***>

The remaining time of the day has gone rather peacefully. Cisco spend some time with Hartley in the pipeline, and while it was clear that it would still take a lot more time and effort for the man to gain the team’s trust, it was apparent that facing and surviving a mortal danger like that together has changed Hartley’s view of things.

Both Cisco and Caitlin were tired out in the evening, so dr. Wells let them go home early. Barry spent an hour or two training on the treadmill, his desire to go faster increasing with the knowledge that one day, his speed will allow him to go back in time, before he too left to get some rest, and the labs got gradually quiet until dr. Wells was the last one still around. At least he thought so.

Several floors above, Adrianne was casually sitting at the bar in the Lounge, a stack of papers in front of her that she, until now, paid all her attention to as she marked them with her pen, when suddenly, she heard the familiar sound of a wheelchair and a soft, amused voice as it spoke: “Well, aren’t you a bit a workaholic, miss Blake?”

“Dr. Wells?” she stopped writing and raised her head, smiling as she saw him wheeling into the room. The lights were on as it was already dark outside, and she twisted her neck slightly to look at a clock on the wall, only to see that it was, in fact, almost 9 p.m. now. She gasped slightly at the realisation and turned back to regard dr. Wells with a surprised look. “You’re here late today.” she said.

“Yes, well, I could say the same about you.” he smiled kindly. “I was about to go home, when I saw the light was still on. What are you still doing here?”

“Oh, I am sorry.” she sighed apologetically. “I didn’t mean to keep you like this. I found out a while ago that it’s easier for me to do my work in here, I have the peace and quiet I need here, so I began to take this with me here sometimes.” she said, gesturing to the mess on the counter. “I guess today I just forgot about the time. Forgive me, dr. Wells.”

“No, no, that’s quite alright. I completely understand.” he replied, nodding in understanding as he wheeled a little closer and looked over her shoulder curiously. “I realise, with all the things that’s been happening, we never really got to talk about your job properly. I remember you said you’ve been teaching at that high school down at Hudson Square.”

“Yeah.” she said with a smile. “Not for very long, but it is a nice place, and fortunately, not too very far from here. I teach History and English, History mostly…”she paused. “I have to thank you again for today, and appologize for disappearing on you like that. One of my colleagues was in a car accident, I had to take over some of her classes.”

“It’s fine.” he assured. “You don’t have to appologize for doing your job, miss Blake. You make up for that here more than adequately. And you didn’t really miss much anyway.” he said, as his eyes skimmed over the pile of tests sitting on the bar. “So, you like history?” he asked, and she laughed.

“Well, yes. I actually have a degree from it, I specialize in ancient history, especially Egypt and Rome, and their artifacts.” she smiled thoughtfully. “You know, I used to think about taking that knowledge to the field, become an archaeologist, but I wasn’t the adventurous type, I like my peace and quiet, as I told you. But, in light of what happened today, I cannot help but wonder, I mean time travel?” she turned her head to look him in the eyes. “Can you imagine what it would be like to be able to travel into the past? Relive history?” she said enthusiastically, and a smirk appeared on her face when she saw the way he grinned, the way his eyes sparkled behind the glasses in amusement.

“I can only agree with you.” he answered, and the smirk on her face turned into a smile as she looked away from him, before a yawn forced itself from her lips. “Ok, that’s it.” she heard dr. Wells’ voice next to her. “I think we should both be going home now.” he said, his eyes shining fondly, but she shook her head. 

“No, I actually have to finish these today. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just crash here when I’m done.” she said, and he stared at her for a second, before consenting. “Very well. There are some pillows and blankets in the closet so you can make yourself comfortable. Sleep well, miss Blake. We’ll see each other in the morning.” he replied, moving towards the door to leave.

“Dr. Wells?” he turned then, slightly surprised as he heard her gentle voice calling him back, and he saw her smiling at him, the look in her blue eyes soft and warm. “Good night.” she simply said, before she turned her attention back to her task, and his features softened slightly in his own smile before he left the room to let her work in peace.

<***>

_A few hours earlier…_

As the Serpent exited Barry Allen’s lab, she heaved a sigh of relief, as she made her way back towards the main entrance of the building. It seemed that her secret was, for now, safe, which was fortunate, because as the Flash rightly deduced, she wasn’t ready to share it yet. She knew that she had to, and soon, if she was to fulfill the goal she set out to do here in the first place, every minute that she didn’t was a precious waste of time, but the situation was a delicate one, she knew what was at stake here, and she felt the need to be careful.

Unseen, she slowly descended the main staircase in the lobby of the Central City Police Department, a place where she really wasn’t comfortable being, but necessity called for it. The hallway was empty, and she was about to quietly book it for the door, when, in the corner of her eyes, she saw Eddie walk up to Joe’s desk and the two shared a conspiratory glance that made her more than a little interested in their conversation, so she quietly edged her way to them, walking quite easily as the dimmed lighting of the office shielded her from anyone’s careful eyes. And as she approached the two policemen, she just about caught the end of their short exchange as Eddie voiced his concerns.

“Are you sure you want to do this…” she froze as he paused. “investigate Wells?” Eddie said, and she sucked in breath sharply as she looked at Joe, and saw the determined look on his face as he answered. Turning around, she fled, left the police station and stopped at a quiet corner of the street to process the new information. 

She still had a few more things she had to deal with before she’d be able to return back to S.T.A.R. Labs to rejoin the team, but that was alright, as she needed the time to think. Joe was a good cop, she knew that, and if he already suspected dr. Wells, she knew that her efforts from now on would have to be extra cautious. And as she sighed and turned towards her next destination, there was only one thought running through her mind: _This is gonna get complicated real fast..._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello and welcome to the next chapter of my story. :) This chapter is a bit longer than the last two, couldn’t be helped, and it is happening during episode 15 and 16 of the first season. I've done some changes to the way things went for the sake of my story, but otherwise, this story is not intended to change the storyline of the Flash too much in regards to the later seasons, so the important events still happened. Enjoy. :)

Flash: The Serpent’s Tale

Chapter 4.

February, 2015

_One month ago_

“You think dr. Wells killed Barry’s mum?” Cisco exclaimed, as he slowly turned towards Joe. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and for a second he dared to hope that he interpreted what the detective just said in a totally wrong way, but the look in Joe’s eyes was enough to prove him wrong. “No way. He didn’t even know Barry then. Why would he kill his mom?” His immediate instinct was to protect his mentor and his friend, cause such a notion was truly absurd, no matter how much he liked and respected Joe and his judgement.

Outside, on the other side of the street, sitting on a roof of a building from which she could have a comfortable view of the police headquarters, sat a figure of a young woman. It was still broad daylight, but she wasn’t worried about being seen as she watched the building before her with narrowed eyes, listening intently as she spied on the conversation within. She was quite happy now that she, in preparation for her little operation, accepted Oswald’s rather exaggerated price and purchased from him the bugs of which one was currently placed in Barry Allen’s lab in the CCPD building, where there currently seemed to be some action underway indeed.

She’s been keeping taps on detective West’s investigation for a while now, and it has been going slow, but the fact that dr. Wells didn’t seem to be aware of it was slightly worrying. It wouldn’t reflect well on either one of their reputations if the Reverse-Flash was beaten simply by underestimating these people, not mentioning it would make her efforts of the past several months a waste of time. Hearing the end of the conversation inside, she slipped down from her perch and was just about to take her leave, when she reached into her pocket to pull out her phone, and seeing an incoming call on its display, she placed it to her ear.

<***>

“Hey, Cisco, what’s up?” came the voice on the other side as his call was connected, and Cisco was relieved to hear the cheerful tone. He wasn’t sure who he could talk to about this right now, he was certainly not interested in putting more worry on Caitlin’s shoulders, or Barry’s, certainly not now of all times, when he knew they were too busy trying to save Ronnie and the man known as professor Stein, and he silently cursed Joe for dragging him into this foolish crusade of his, when he should have been back in the labs with them, doing his best to help. Right now though, he was still upset, and he needed to get this off his chest, so he took his phone and called the first person that came to his mind.

“Hi, Adrianne…” he returned her greeting, trying to sound normal. “I was wondering, do you have time right now? The others have their hands full trying to help Ronnie and Stein, so I thought, could you meet me at Jitters? I… I need to talk to somebody.”

There was a gentle sigh on the other end before she answered. “Yeah, yeah sure, I’m not far away, I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.” she paused. “Are you alright, Cisco? You sound a little off.” her voice was full of concern as she spoke to him. “I’m fine.” he said. “There’s just something on my mind, see you in fifteen then. I’ll order us some coffees while I wait for you.” hearing her response, he ended the call and, needing the fresh air, began to walk to his destination.

<***>

A short while later Adrianne opened the door to Jitters, taking in the warmth and the friendly atmosphere of the café, before her eyes sought out the person she came here to meet. Cisco sat at one of the tables in the corner, looking slightly forlorn, and immediately she felt the urge to go and comfort him, as she knew very well why they were here. 

So, she approached him with a smile and sat on a chair opposite of him. There were two coffees sitting on the table, and with a pleased huff she acknowledged the fact that Cisco remembered just how she liked hers as she tasted it. Cisco looked like he was very glad to see her, and he was the first one to speak when she sat down. “So, how was your day today?” he said conversationally, and she grinned. “Yeah, sorry I wasn’t around, school’s keeping me busy… and don’t get me wrong, I like it,” she added quickly. “but sometimes I wish saving people was a paid job for me too. Barry’s lucky he gets to be a hero even without being the Flash.”

“Yeah,” Cisco agreed, and Adrianne looked at him, her eyes questioning as she heard the slightly dejected tone of his voice. “So, how come you’re not in the labs with the others?” she asked, and Cisco took a sip of his coffee before replying: “I’ve been helping Joe with an… investigation.” he began carefully. “Turns out he’s been trying to solve the murder of Barry’s mother ever since he found out he was the Flash. A few days ago he asked me to come with him to Barry’s old house to look for more clues from that night. We found blood on one of the walls, hidden under a wallpaper.” there was a slight pause, a hint of hesitation, and she looked at him patiently, waiting for her friend to continue.

“So, I tested it back at the labs and today I went to tell Joe that there were blood samples from two different people. He… he told me to test if one of the samples belonged to dr. Wells.” Cisco finished finally and it was apparent that it weighed on him quite a lot from the way his shoulders sagged. Adrianne kept looking at him, her eyes narrowed slightly. “So… he thinks it was Wells who killed Barry’s mother?” she asked incredulously. “That sounds ridiculous.” 

“Exactly.” said Cisco, a little louder that he meant to perhaps, clearly relieved that he wasn’t the only one who thought that way. “I mean I told him just that, it just doesn’t make sense, but he seems to be pretty convinced of it. He said Wells keeps secrets, and yeah, I guess that’s true, but what would give him the idea to think something so horrible?” he sounded genuinely upset, and Adrianne put a hand on his arm in a comforting gesture, before she spoke.

“Hey,” she said kindly. “I’m sure it’s nothing, Cisco. Look, Joe is a cop. Any kind of secret is enough to ruffle his feathers and dr. Wells certainly has his, who doesn’t? Yeah, he’s not a very open person, but can you blame him, after all he’s been through?” she spoke, and at her words, Cisco seemed to calm down a bit as he smiled weakly. “I’m sure this is all going to clear itself up soon and we’ll be laughing about it later.” she spoke reassuringly, before quickly changing the subject.

“Now, I was thinking, after this whole thing with Ronnie is through, maybe instead of watching movies we can have a game night, we can invite Hartley…” she said, seeing Cisco relax at last as he thought about their brief foe turned friend. It was thanks to him and his help that Ronnie was back with them, which in turn was the reason the once vengeful young scientist wasn’t in the pipeline anymore, and while their relationship had still ways to go, any mention of Hartley was enough to bring a smile to the latino-american’s face.

“You mean so you can watch as he crushes me in chess?” Cisco asked jokingly, making her laugh as she answered in turn. “Maybe we can watch dr. Wells crushing him in chess instead.” she spoke in a conspiratory tone, and they laughed together as their conversation finally took a much lighter turn.

March 22, 2015

_Two days ago_

The night was dark, and still rather cold, as winter slowly gave way to the first days of spring, and Adrianne was once again walking alone through the streets of Central City. Cisco has invited her to join him and dr. Wells for another night of movie watching, which she had to decline unfortunately as, unexpectedly, something else came up that she had to attend. Specifically, she was meeting with a client.

About an hour later she was sitting at a table in a bar, sipping a drink as she casually threw glances at a rather cute guy at the bar counter. As per her usual protocol, she was wearing a simple, black eye mask that covered her features enough not to be recognised. No one around her thought of it as weird, as this bar was in a rather shadier part of town and she conducted her business here several times before. A few minutes later, a man sat himself down beside her. He looked to be somewhere in his thirties, dressed in a business-like manner that didn’t really fit in the scene around them, which was enough to tell her he was really desperate to get whatever he was going to ask for if he agreed to meet her here.

“Good evening.” he said, a little nervously, as he watched her staring at him from behind her mask. He looked like the type of guy who didn’t usually deal with the underworld, and so she gave him an encouraging smile as she replied. “Good evening, would you like something to drink? It’s my treat.” The man returned her smile gratefully, but shook his head. “No thank you. I would just like to cut to the chase, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure.” she nodded her head and leaned back in her chair. “How can I help you, mr…?”

“My name is Jason Powell.” the man introduced himself. “And I would like you to kill somebody.” Adrianne stared at him for a minute as he stated this, her eyes widened slightly in surprise. Then, she nodded her head. “Very well. Tell me more, mr. Powell.” she said pleasantly as she gave him her full attention, and the man went on to explain the full details of his problem. Something about a much too clever lawyer that was exploiting him for his own not entirely legal business.

All in all, after a few minutes of listening to him, Adrianne knew that this case was a boring one. The Serpent wasn’t a hitwoman, she never advertised herself as such, mostly because usually, she didn’t really enjoy killing people that much and it brought all sorts of unpleasant trouble along with it, but, from time to time, people who couldn’t afford anyone directly in that line of work approached her for this kind of job as well, and she wasn’t one to refuse an opportunity.

“Alright.” she sat up straighter in her chair, her fingers intertwined as she put her hands on the table. “I understand your position and I am willing to consider accepting it.” she said, her tone positive, and she quickly added, before the man could object to her choice of words. “I can’t promise anything just yet. There is a procedure to follow. First, I will check the background of your situation and determine whether eliminating this particular target may not affect me in any way. It’s a safety precaution, I’m sure you understand. As a compensation for that, I will accept your payment only after the deed is done.”

Mr. Powell seemed to calm down after that explanation, and she was about to ask for some further details, at that moment though, another man entered the bar, and approached the one at the counter she was watching earlier. She wasn’t paying attention to them now, and she probably wouldn’t have even noticed whatever exchange was going on, if she hadn’t heard the newcomer’s rather loud greeting. “Hey, Mardon!” she started slightly at the sound, and then she narrowed her eyes as she turned around to look at the bar again. For some reason, the name sounded familiar, and she dug in her memory for a few moments until she figured out why...

_Flashback_

_“So, when did you find out Barry was the Flash?” she asked Joe one day, as she slowly got to know the whole gang. Spending so much time at S.T.A.R. Labs, among so many scientifically inclined people that spoke in a language she could barely understand sometimes, it was rather refreshing to talk to a man who was a bit more at her own level, even if he was a cop._

_“That was actually the very first week after he found out. We were chasing this guy named Clyde Mardon, he and his brother were two punks who used to rob banks together, before everyone thought they died in a plane crash after the particle accelerator exploded. Nine months later, Clyde suddenly comes back from the dead, with the ability to control weather. The guy was able to summon a storm out of thin air.”_

_“Wow, that sounds cool.” she remarked that day, rather impressed, and quickly added, as she saw the look the detective gave her. “And horrible, of course. What happened?”_

_“I happened.” he answered. “He almost killed the Flash in the end, created a pair of freaky tornadoes and then he almost shot him, so I put him down first. Then, when I looked the Flash in the eye, I recognised immediately that it was Barry…”_

Curiously, Adrianne looked on as the two men slowly got up from their stools and headed for the door. She quickly decided to follow them, and, looking at the man she was sitting with, she gave him a friendly, apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, mr. Powell, but something else came up, I have to go now. But I will contact you as soon as I’m ready to give you my answer, please expect my call in a few days.” It wasn’t usually like her to cut a meeting this short, but this felt somewhat important, and so, gracefully, she shook the man’s hand, and then she followed her two quarries outside.

It was easy for her to follow them in her invisible state, and she didn’t have to go very far, as just a few streets from the bar the two stopped, hidden away in a darkened alley, and the unnamed man, a typical low life thug by the looks of it, took out a box of smokes, lighting them both a cigarette. “So, Mark, how long have you been back in town?” he said after a while. “And where have you been all this time? Everyone thought you were dead.”

Adrianne watched from the shadows as the man called Mark Mardon took a puff of his cigarette, before he answered. “Almost. I had to take an extended vacation in a hospital. But now I’m back.” she smiled as she heard him speak. His voice had a rather pleasant, deep tone and now that she saw him properly up close, she could see he had a really handsome face, with a mop of hazel brown hair on his head and an uneven stubble of a beard growing along his jaw. She could see herself happily robbing banks with the guy, even though that wasn’t her usual pastime either.

However, as she continued to observe, she could see something dangerous appearing in the man’s eyes as the conversation continued. “So why are you here Mark?” asked the other man, and then he added rather sombrely. “You know, I’m really sorry about your brother, man, you were always such a great team, things are never gonna be quite the same now.” he said, and Adrianne saw him take a step back then while she herself shivered as she could feel the shift in the atmosphere… literally.

“That actually is the reason why I’m here.” said Mardon, and his voice now darkened, showing the signs of growing anger. “What do you know about his death? Do you know who killed him?” She was glad she wasn’t too close to them, as when she looked up, she could see the sky directly above the two men darkening, and she looked down to see Mardon’s hands clenched into fists. It seemed to her like he was doing it unconsciously more than anything, but she realised immediately that the man must have had the same abilities as his late brother, only much stronger.

“I… Mark, I… I don’t know.” his companion stuttered as he slowly tried to back away. “It was a cop, some detective or something. You’re gonna have to ask around.” he said, his voice full of fear as he watched what was happening, and Mardon seemed to have noticed as he unclenched his hands and the angry clouds above them slowly dissipated, but by the time he did his friend had already taken off running in the opposite direction. 

There was a small, amused smirk on Mardon’s face as he turned and walked away, and Adrianne took this time as an opportunity to make her move as she silently followed him. She sighed gently as she did so, shaking her head. As much she would have loved to just step back and watch as the man took revenge upon his brother’s killer, for she could see clearly how much his sibling’s death pained him and she felt bad, she could also see that with powers like that, there was no way this could go down without some major drama. 

Over the course of the last month, Joe West’s suspicions of dr. Wells have calmed down somewhat, and Adrianne decided that now was a good time to come out with her own secrets, so she was most certainly not willing to allow any complications at a time like this. And so, determined, she focused on the man before her as she followed him through the streets, waiting for her opening to strike.

March 23, 2015

_One day ago_

It was only the next day’s morning, when everyone gathered at S.T.A.R. Labs, when Joe had the time to properly explain to them what exactly happened last night. Barry himself, so far, only knew that it was exceptionally weird and didn’t make a lot of sense. Appearantly, it was around 10 p.m., when CCPD received a rather frantic call from Central City’s morgue, made by the coroner himself, who has been assaulted by a man searching for the deceased Clyde Mardon’s killer, but before the maniac could seriously hurt him, he was suddenly knocked out by a mysterious figure, who he sadly couldn’t see quite clearly as he was rather dazed from the attack, and then they disappeared before he could get a good look.

As Joe thought of the experience rather strange, especially after the coroner described the intruder’s powers, he immediately called Barry, who went over to the morgue and took the man, who turned out to be none other than Mark Mardon, Clyde’s older brother, back to S.T.A.R. Labs to lock him in the pipeline, before he could wake up and wreak some more havoc. Mark himself was unhelpful when it came to the identity of his assailant and there was no evidence of them at the crime scene, so for now they had to write the incident off as nothing more then a case of someone from Mardon’s past wanting to send him in prison as revenge or something of that nature.

At the end of the day, though, they were rid of a dangerous criminal, and so they, especially Joe, who was still reeling from the fact that one of the Mardon brother’s was still alive and posing a threat, were not really willing to question it any further. Cisco, for that matter, had his own things to worry about, as he was supposed to go to his brother’s birthday celebration. To him, facing Mark Mardon by himself would be preferable to facing his own family, but now that the “Weather Wizard” was out of the picture, he had no way to simply weasel out of it. Fortunately, he was not going to go there alone, as both Caitlin and Adrianne agreed to come with him, which has been enough to somewhat ease his worries.

<***>

Meanwhile, at CCPN, Iris West was having a normal, busy day at the office, when she was casually approached by her still rather unbearable, but fortunately less unfriendly colleague, Mason Bridge. Their relationship has been progressing slowly, but they’ve been on better terms ever since Iris, with a little help from the Flash, managed to prove her worth to the newspaper. Mason turned out to be a surprisingly clever man, determined and fierce when chasing down a story, exactly the way Iris always wanted to be herself. Today, however, she was presented with a theory that was less then pleasant to pursue, considering Barry’s involvement, but the evidence were compelling enough to make her ask.

So, when Barry came in to talk to his current girlfriend, Linda Park, a witty and brilliant fellow reporter from over at sports news, and he stopped by her desk to greet her, Iris asked him about Harrison Wells directly. “You know, a lot of strange things have been happening in Central City this past year. The Flash, the Burning Man, people going missing.” she said, showing him a photo taken from a security footage. “Appearantly, Harrison Wells was there at Stagg’s office the night that Stagg went missing.” she voiced, staring at him expectantly as she waited for his answer.

“And, you think that dr. Wells is what, responsible?” Barry asked, as if he’s never heard anything more ridiculous, and promptly denied any such accusations. He didn’t believe any of them of course, but he was still troubled, so he went to talk to Mason Bridge himself, and the conversation he had with him only made matters worse, as the reporter seemed to be convinced that dr. Wells was not only the cause of Simon Staggs disappearance, but that he actually murdered him as well, and yet he refused to reveal any proof he had. 

Whatever it was though, it couldn’t be true. From what he’s seen, Simon Stagg was obviously a crook who didn’t care about people not even half as much as he claimed to, and if he indeed disappeared or even died, it was at the hands of some other person he swindled over and who took justice into their own hands, not by the man who saved his life and helped him become the hero that he was now.

<***>

Looking back at it, Dante’s celebration did not turn out to be the stuff of nightmares Cisco described it to be, but Adrianne could clearly see why her friend was reluctant to spend time with any of these people. To say that it wasn’t her usual scene would be an understatement of the century, the moment she entered that living room she immediately wanted to just back out and book it out of there, but she wasn’t going to abandon Cisco to his fate even if he still had Caitlin by his side.

There was no need to worry, however, as they were not meant to spend more than a few minutes there. Cisco’s brother, Dante, was a charming young man, or at least he was trying to be, but the difference between the brothers was pretty apparent and, compared to Cisco, she really couldn’t see what was supposed to be so impressive about his older sibling. And the dismissive and slightly degrading way he was speaking to her friend was making her blood boil. So she was happy to leave that place behind at the end, as Cisco angrily stormed out of the place with her and Caitlin, who stayed behind only long enough to give Dante an awkward smile, in tow, before she could do anything regretful.

That afternoon, as they returned to S.T.A.R. Labs, Cisco was naturally not in a very good mood, but Adrianne managed to somehow distract him when she asked him to show her some of his newest projects. Cisco was always at his happiest when he was in his workshop fiddling with his stuff, so she made a special effort to be attentive and ask curious questions to keep him from feeling depressed. 

About an hour later though, Barry wandered into the workshop as he came back to the labs from his trip to CCPN, and it was apparent from the frown on his face that he was concerned about something.

“You ok, Barry?” Cisco said, seeing how unusually quiet Barry was, and the young speedster looked at him as he came out of his musings. “Yeah, yeah… it’s just,” he paused, “somebody at Picture News, his name is Mason Bridge, he’s a reporter, got it into Iris’s head that something suspicious is going on with dr. Wells.”

“Like what?” asked Cisco, and Adrianne glanced at him nervously as his tone changed slightly. She could see how the little wheels in his head were turning, and it was making her anxious. “He says that Wells knows what happened to Simon Stagg. Appearantly nobody has heard from him or seen him since the night I stopped Danton Black.”

Adrianne frowned. She wasn’t here yet to witness that particular adventure, but she was told briefly about the man who could replicate himself and his boss he was trying to kill. Whatever reason Wells had for killing this Stagg, he surely did a sloppy job of it if there was any evidence left behind. “Well, what did you tell her?” she asked carefully, and she calmed down a little bit as she heard Barry answer rather firmly. “That she is wrong. And she is.” before he left, and Adrianne stared at the door he disappeared through, deep in thought. She silently cursed this Mason Bridge guy for stirring things up when it seemed the danger had finally passed, and she knew that he would have to be dealt with somehow, but first, she needed to have a long talk with “dr. Wells” about everything. Right now, however, she was tired, and she needed time to think about what she was going to say, so she decided to leave it for the morning, as she said goodbye to Cisco and went home to get some sleep.

Later that evening, Cisco was still working in the labs when Caitlin came to see him before she left as well, and, being the perceptive doctor and friend she was, she immediately noticed that something was wrong with him. She, however, regretted asking as Cisco hesitantly told her everything, about what he heard from Barry and Joe, and how his own suspicions have been gnawing at him for quite some time.

She, of course, denied everything, because what he was saying was just impossible, she knew dr. Wells, knew him for many years, and there was no way that the kind, noble man who supported her through the worst time of her life, has done any of those things they accused him off. There simply had to be another explanation for all this, and when Cisco asked her to keep their boss distracted for a few hours the next morning, she reluctantly agreed. She didn’t want to deceive dr. Wells like this, but it seemed that there was no way her friend was going to let this go unless she allowed him to figure out on his own that he was wrong. She knew she was a bad liar though, and she could only hope that dr. Wells will not catch on to what was going on.

March 24, 2015

_Now_

Eobard Thawne knew, from the first moment he laid eyes on Caitlin that morning, that there was something going on. First of all, while he liked the young woman, almost as much as he liked Cisco, she usually respected his private life outside of the labs and it has never happened before that she asked him to spend some time with her like this. Usually she was very timid the few times she tried to invite him along to some of the after work activities she did with Barry and Cisco, or Ronnie before that, so much that it was actually almost hard to refuse her sometimes.

And so when she called him this morning to invite him for a breakfast at Jitters, he was rather intrigued, which was mostly the reason he said yes in the first place. He was wondering what she wanted, for there surely must have been something she wanted to discuss with him in a more private setting, if it couldn’t wait until they met later at work. But the longer their conversation went, he realised that she didn’t seem to have a reason to be here with him at all, and that alone made him slightly suspicious.

Still, he would have happily considered that as nothing but him being a little paranoid, if it wasn’t for the fact that the closer they got to actually finishing their breakfast, the more nervous Caitlin seemed to get. She was checking her watch every ten minutes or so, her whole body language giving off signs of extreme distress. Caitlin was an honest woman, she was not a natural deceiver and it showed as she tried to stall for time. That’s when he realised the reason for this distraction, she was trying to keep him out of the labs. And if even Caitlin, his dear, loyal Caitlin who thought of him as a saint, opted to try and keep the reason from him, it could only mean his secret was in danger.

And so it was, in a quick decision that he knew meant he would have to make vast changes to his plans later, one that would most probably involve losing two of his most favourite members of the team, as frustrating as that was, he abandoned the wheelchair and zoomed as fast as he could back to S.T.A.R. Labs. And sure enough, as he checked the cameras, there Cisco was, standing in the Bunker and staring at the life-like picture of the Reverse-Flash flickering before him.

His brilliant, clever Cisco, he thought, as he stared at the image, before he walked through the corridor to the elevator, and his heart clenched a little as he thought about what he had to do now. He thought about trying to convince the boy otherwise, but he knew there was nothing that could be done about this. Cisco was too good, too much of a hero, and there was nothing he could promise, nothing he could threaten him with that would make him keep his secret from Barry long enough for him to go with his plan. And with so much at stake here, there was simply no time for making mistakes.

<***>

Walking through the familiar corridors, Adrianne walked into the labs, feeling beyond nervous, but determined. This was a big day, and she had no idea how it would go, or if she would wind up being alive at the end of it, but she couldn’t put it off any longer. With the team’s suspicion tightening around dr. Wells, now with the involvement of that annoying reporter, it was certain that Eobard would need her help, and if she was to continue helping him with any officency, he needed to know about her involvement.

So, this morning, she came to S.T.A.R. Labs with the particular purpose to get a moment alone with dr. Wells and explain things, to break it to him that she wasn’t who she said she was and that she knew that he wasn’t either. It may not have been the most elegant of solutions, but she might as well keep it simple.

However, as she walked inside the huge building, holding two paper bags in her hands, and made her way along the corridors to the Cortex, the first thing she noticed was how empty the place seemed. She checked the time, but though she was here a bit early, she wasn’t here early enough that no one else would be here yet, in fact, if nothing else, dr. Wells usually have been here at this time for sure.

She walked around the main console to check the feed from the cameras to see where everyone was. What she saw nearly froze her to the spot in horror as she dropped everything and ran through the corridor towards the elevator.

<***>

Cisco stood, staring at the flickering image in front of him, and as the wheels in his head kept turning, coming back to the same, terrible, horrifying conclusion, he felt the temperature of his body slowly dropping as his face drained of colour. There was an impulse, a part of him that knew that he should turn the system off and ran as soon as he laid eyes on that terrifying, red eyed monstrosity in front of him, a part of him that knew that he should bury what he saw deep in his mind and never think or speak of this again.

But another part of him was too entranced, too horribly fascinated by what he was seeing, that he just continued to watch as, what he now knew to be a simple hologram, replayed in front of him again and again, until he could feel his very blood run cold at the sound of his mentor’s voice coming from behind him, echoing the words the hologram spoke to them so many month ago, before the image behind him vanished, and he focused all his terrified attention on the man before him.

It was scary, the way this man still wore the mask of dr. Wells, the man who was his idol for such a long time and over the last short years, became his friend, and yet he could clearly see now that what was hiding beneath the facade was something else, someone else. To him, dr. Wells was always slightly intimidating, with him being such a prominent figure in the scientific world, a genius, but during the years of seeing him in that wheelchair, working with him had lessened the feeling somewhat. Now, seeing the man stand before him filled him with dread. His stance was one of self-confidence, the fact that Cisco just discovered his secret didn’t worry him in the slightest, and it has dawned on the young scientist that he was not going to survive this.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair, he told himself, listening on, trying to understand as the man he loved, a man he accepted into his life almost as a surrogate father, went about his lengthy explanation of things Cisco couldn’t wrap his head around. It wasn’t fair that he was going to die because he was too clever, the same reason this man seemed to admire him so much for. Dr. We… Eobard Thawne spoke with pride as he told him about his powers, he sounded almost excited that he could finally tell Cisco everything, and then, as he turned and stepped closer to deliver the killing blow, as Cisco desperately tried to talk his way out of it, he could hear the man’s voice break as if this was difficult for him, and it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair to hear this sudden stranger profess his fatherly love for him while he prepared to crush his heart, literally and figuratively, at the same time…

“Stop!” The hand descending towards him halted mid-air as both men froze when a voice suddenly rang in the silence around them, and there was a sound of a weapon’s discharge before a stream of ice passed between them, hitting the wall with a hiss. Eobard Thawne turned around slowly, and Cisco just stared at the person who emerged from the elevator, slightly out of breath, and stared daggers at the speedster in front of her. It was clearly a woman, long blond hair flowing freely down her back, but her face was hidden by a mask, her features obscured except for her bright grey-blue eyes and her lips, that were currently narrowed in a thin line in her anger. Her voice was disguised too, masked by some kind of voice altering device.

She took a few, cautious steps forward, and they could see the way she was dressed, a strange costume formed of leather and fabric, meant for someone who preferred agility to protection, but still tried to keep balance between the two, a soft jacket over a leather west to protect her chest, thick boots placed over lightweight trousers, all made in various shades of brown colour. There was a utility belt with many pockets around her waist, a dagger hanging from a holster attached to it. 

Her hands were covered with fingerless, leather gloves, and in one of them, she was currently holding what looked suspiciously like Cisco’s freeze gun, albeit a bit smaller. And that was currently a centre of everyone’s attention, as she held it in the air, leveled at the Reverse-Flash’s head, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she watched him carefully.

“You better put that hand down,” she spoke as she nodded towards the offending, still vibrating extremity. “before I freeze it off.” her voice, though concealed with a slight mechanical undertone, was slightly shaky as she spoke, but her anger at the situation was helping her remain calm. She didn’t once look at Cisco as she watched the Reverse-Flash like a hawk, his every reaction scrutinised. “This gun has been made for me by the courtesy of mr. Freeze.” she clarified. “It may look small, but it is about five times stronger than the one he made.” she said, carefully indicating her head towards Cisco without letting her eyes leave the man who was a very real threat to both of them.

Eobard Thawne didn’t react so far, hasn’t said a word, but she could see him flex his muscles as he prepared to spring into action, and, having lost her element of surprise, she knew she had to say something quickly now. “It is quite possible that you might reach me before I manage to hit you,” she began carefully. “but do you really wanna risk it with your damaged speed? Particularly when I’m the one who’s tried to help you with that?”

The Reverse-Flash stopped in his tracks as the words reached him, and he stared at the woman in front of him with interest, finally speaking. “You’re the one who took the tachyon device?” Truth is, he’s been trying to figure out who was the mysterious person who helped him out at Christmas, but since then, he or she, well, she, hadn’t shown herself again, and in the light of the things that happened later, well, he’s almost forgotten about her. But now she was standing here, choosing to confront him over… he looked at Cisco, then back at her, and they could both see in each other’s eyes the moment when he realised the truth as recognition passed through his and a slight look of fear through hers.

“Yes.” she answered after a few seconds as she took a hold of herself. Sensing that she was not going to be killed after all, at least for now, she visibly relaxed as she reached into her belt, pulling an object from one of it’s bigger pockets. “And I will tell you everything in good time, but we need to deal with this first, if you don’t mind.” she said, and before he could react, she strode towards Cisco and quickly shoved the object in front of his face. She pushed a button and there was a bright flash of light, after which Cisco was left standing there, blinking, with a dazed look on his face.

She glanced at Thawne, seeing his slightly shocked expression as he was eying the device in her hand curiously. She could see he knew what it was or at least had an idea where it came from. “Where did you get that?” he asked, a little suspicious, and she shook her head.

“I borrowed this from a Time Master, probably the same one you’re thinking of.” she spoke, her voice quiet, and before he could reply, continued hurriedly as she advanced towards him. “Now please, mr. Thawne, I will explain everything, but right now, you need to erase that stupid hologram that caused this in the first place, get this guy into his workshop and get your wheelchair. Go! I’ll meet you later in the Time Vault.”

It was perhaps the absence of fear or the insistence in her voice, but the Reverse-Flash actually listened as he flashed between the laptop on the table, grabbed the still rather stunned Cisco and then vanished in a span of a few seconds. The young woman he left behind then looked around to see if everything here was in order, before she followed in his footsteps at a much slower pace.

<***>

Caitlin was in shock. The whole experience was still so surreal it felt like a dream, a nightmare. She didn’t want to believe this, she couldn’t believe this… but now, she had to. Because the moment she turned around and stared at that empty wheelchair, part of her mind began to connect the dots, colliding with the one that was still in denial, and both of them were freaking out at what was just revealed.

It was a miracle that she was able to safely drive herself back to S.T.A.R. Labs in the state she was in and with the speed she was taking to get there, but somehow, she did. The place looked empty, and, nearing the entrance to the Cortex, she was about to dial Barry’s number, but as she walked into the room, she stopped in surprise as she saw Adrianne there, standing in the middle of the room, leaning on one of the consoles.

As the blond woman heard her footsteps, she turned, and immediately her eyes filled with concern as she saw her and the expression that surely must have been on her face. “Caitlin?” she asked, stepping closer to her and putting her hand on her shoulder. “What is it? What’s going on? Why do you look so terrified? I came here like ten minutes ago and nobody was here and...”

“There’s no time.” Caitlin interrupted her hurriedly. “It’s dr. Wells, he’s… I don’t…” she took a deep breath to calm herself down. “Adrianne, I think Joe was right about him. We need to call Barry.” For a few seconds, her friend just stared at her as she took in the news, then, there was a sigh as she spoke. “Caitlin…” she began, then let out a groan. “Damn, this day is just a bloody mess.”

“What?” Caitlin asked her, confused. She was starting to panic a bit again as she stood in the normally so familiar building, but now there was a coldness settling in her bones at all the possible implications of what she saw and what it meant for everything in her life. She felt it was impossible to accept it all without loosing a piece of her mind. She could only hope there was some good explanation, one that wasn’t exactly what her brain was telling her now.

“Nothing.” Adrianne said quickly. “I just had a really bad feeling when I arrived here, and now I see why.” she scoffed as she added. “Ok, call Barry. I’ll be right back.” she disappeared back through the corridor and Caitlin took out her phone and pressed it to her ear. She heard the dialing tone as it blared inside her ear, and she was frustrated to find Barry wasn’t picking up. Then, there was a touch on her shoulder, and when she turned, a blinding flash of white light.

<***>

Adrianne hurried through the corridor, being, for once, grateful that she decided to take the risk and store her equipment here at S.T.A.R. Labs, where it could be readily accessed in a situation like this. She walked back into Cortex, took the memory flasher she brought with her and quickly ended what would have been a true disaster for her plans. As Caitlin stood there, blinking in obvious confusion, she forced a concerned look back at her face as she took the phone that fell out of Caitlin’s hand and ended the call before it could have been connected.

“Caitlin? Caitlin, are you ok?” she asked gently, as she put a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. The brunette looked at her through the haze of her confusion, before her eyes started to come back to focus. “I… I don’t know.” she said uncertainly. “You were about to tell me something and then you went kind of pale. Are you feeling alright?” Adrianne asked, her voice laced with worry.

“I am kinda dizzy.” said Caitlin, as she put her hand to her face. Adrianne sighed, guiding her to the nearest chair. “Alright, here, sit down. I’m gonna make you some tea or something, I just hope you’re not getting sick. It gets sad around here when you’re not around. Or Cisco.” she said, her voice turning slightly downcast as she remembered what just nearly happened. 

She was about to rush off, when she heard the familiar sound of a wheelchair getting closer, and in the next moment, the man known as dr. Wells entered the Cortex. Her eyes locked with his, her look devoid of any expression as she stared at him, trying to discern his intentions. Before she could say anything, Caitlin shook herself out of her stupor and stood up. “Thank you, Adrianne, but I am fine now, I must have got up too quickly or something. Hello, dr. Wells,” the young doctor spoke cheerfully. “you’re here kinda late today.” she said, smiling brightly at him, having no clue how close to death she actually came just a few minutes ago.

Her face lacked any trace of stress or worry as she looked at him, and the Reverse-Flash stared at her, searching her face, before he returned her smile. “Yes, dr. Snow, I was slightly delayed this morning, nothing you should be concerned about. Hopefully today won’t be a very exciting one. For now, I have something I need to look at, so I’ll be in the lower labs if you need me, but if you do, please call me first.” he gave her forearm a gentle, reassuring grip, and as he turned, he gave Adrianne a pointed look, before disappearing into the corridor, heading towards his secret room. Adrianne took a deep breath, silently willing herself to calm down, glancing at her friend who was, blissfully unaware, searching for something at one of the computers, before she hesitantly followed after him.

<***>

Back in his workshop, Cisco Ramon came to with a jerk. He wasn’t quite sure exactly what happened, but he was still feeling rather woozy, so he assumed he must have nodded off for a while, probably a result of staying up late yesterday. He was sitting at his desk at the workshop, the place half buried in mechanical parts, as always, and the moment his eyes focused, he smiled, as he saw several things that he was eager to work on, which effective took his thoughts away from that weird feeling of strange emptiness he felt in the back of his head. It was still early, Barry hasn’t come in for today yet, and so far, there were no alarms going off anywhere, so there was no need to play hero either, so for now he was content to stay here and work on his stuff in peace.

Meanwhile, Caitlin was still sitting in the Cortex, happily working away as she checked the inventory in her lab. There were several things that she needed to resupply, and so she was busy making a thorough list that she would give to dr. Wells later. Neither one of the two friends seemed to notice that something was amiss, and as they went on with their day, it seemed that, for now, the Reverse-Flash’s secret was safe. For now at least.

<***>

Adrianne Blake, also known as the Serpent, stepped across the threshold as she pushed the correct section of the wall that revealed the entrance to the Time Vault. She did so slowly, deliberately, and with a certain level of awe as she looked around the room, its design so distinctly futuristic not even the labs around it could compete with it. She was only in this room once before and only for a few seconds that she couldn’t waste on exploration, and she was glad she could finally see it like this. She let her eyes wonder over the strangely textured walls, stopped briefly as she admired the yellow suit mounted inside a compartment in one of the walls, and then her eyes fell on the figure standing by a small plinth on the other end of the room. Harrison Wells. Eobard Thawne. The Reverse-Flash.

He turned to her as she entered the room, looking at her strangely, not yet angrily, as she expected, but she knew he didn’t quite know what to think of her, an unexpected new variable, unpredictable in its nature, at least until he could determine her motives. “Miss Blake.” he said, as the door closed behind her. There was no need to adress that it was, in fact, her, who confronted him not ten minutes ago. “You promised me an explanation.” he asked, his voice a mix of intrigue and impatience.

“And I will give you one.” she replied evenly, taking a few steps forward. “But first I gotta ask: Were you really going to do it? To kill Cisco?” she asked, her voice serious. She sighed as she shook her head slowly, speaking in a quiet voice that was meant more to her than him. “I mean I knew there was something that happened between the two of you, but I would never imagine…” she mumbled, before she gave him a piercing stare. “I thought you cared about him.” she said, a hint of accusation slipping into her voice against her will.

His blue eyes hardened slightly. “I do.” he admitted. “But I had no other choice.”

“There’s always another choice.” she countered, raising her voice just a bit. “You shouldn’t have left the hologram in the system in the first place. He’s too clever, you should’ve known he wouldn’t let this go.” she was still angry with him, she couldn’t hide that, even though she wanted to, and she knew it wasn’t wise to aggravate him, but she couldn’t help it.

“Yes, I admit that,” he conceded, letting out a deep sigh before he continued. “But it doesn’t change anything. He wouldn’t have kept this from Barry, so he had to be removed from the equation. I would feel sorry about it, terribly even, but to me, he’s already been dead for centuries anyway.”

She raised her eyebrows at that, staring at him, her mouth hanging slightly open. Then, she sighed as well, lowering her head as she looked away from him. “That, my friend, is the lamest excuse for killing someone I have heard in a long time.” she said, her voice more dissapointed then angry. She has long ago resigned herself to the fact that people meant very little to him, but she was hoping, seeing how close him and Cisco seemed to be, that this time was a little different. “Maybe back in your future he is, but not now. Right now, he’s alive and one of the sweetest, coolest people I’ve ever met, who, by the way, loves you as a father, he deserves some consideration.”

Forcing herself to calm down, she let out her next words: “And if you really want to go into these semantics, fine, because, in this time, you haven’t been even born yet.” she exclaimed. “Right now, you’re an idea that doesn’t even have to come to pass, and if you carry on the way you currently are, that is exactly what is going to happen here.”

She saw him stop dead in his tracks as his brain processed her words. “What?” He spoke, a frown appearing on his face. “What are you talking about?”

“Right.” said Adrianne quickly, taking a deep breath as she forced a small smile on her face. She came here to help, she did not want to irritate him any further. “Right,” she repeated, “I am not here to argue with you. Cisco is alive, that’s quite enough for now, and we have a lot to discuss, you and I.”

He came closer to her, his stance easy, but she could from the sharp look in his eyes he was getting a bit annoyed, and she took a small step back, as he was still a lot taller than she was used to and it was a little intimidating to look at him now.

“Than you better start talking.” he spoke, his voice turning into a strange, gruff whisper, and she scoffed silently at the tone. “Ok, first of all, if you’re trying to intimidate me, you can stop with the evil whispering...” cocking her head to the side, her voice rose slightly in pitch as she smiled, amused. “Or is that default? Is that how you actually talk now?” she chuckled, then cleared her throat as she realised she forgot herself for a moment. “Sorry, sorry.” she took a deep breath and leveled her voice back to a more serious tone. “Ok, here’s how it’s gonna go. First, I’ll tell you the short version, then I’ll tell you the long one, and then you can decide what to do with me. Deal?” she smiled at him expectantly, and, after a minute of hesitation, he nodded his agreement.

“Alright, thank you.” the young woman replied as a relieved smile spread across her face. “Now, you and I are gonna be here for a while and there’s only one way we’re having this conversation.” she said, and then she lifted her index finger, signaling him to wait as she walked back to the entrance and picked up the two bags she left sitting there. Lifting one up, she saw his eyebrows rising high towards his hairline in an amused surprise as she showed him the familiar logo and said with a toothy grin: “Big Belly Burger?”

<***>

In another part of town, there was a bit of an excitement happening as well, as two familiar rogues showed their faces back in Central City, and immediately managed to get themselves into trouble, at least that’s how it seemed at the start. Leonard Snart and Mick Rory, now accompanied by Snart’s lovely sister, Lisa, were not back in town for even a week when they got themselves captured by one of the local Italian mob families, who had a beef with them for a very long time. Snart was a troublemaker, and nobody liked those, and Mick, well, some people would say that Mick was just crazy, in truth, he just really loved watching things burn. That, and money. What the elder member of the Santini family should've accounted for, however, was that Snart was also very smart, and he wouldn’t have come back without a plan, and as Captain Cold stood above the man’s dying body, that plan was already falling into place. There was only one man in Central City that he needed to see, and the only thing they needed now was a way to get to him, and some proper motivation.

<***>

“So,” the Reverse-Flash began, as he sat himself back into his wheelchair and dug into the bag of, though a bit cold now, still deliciously smelling fast food. “who are you exactly?”

He didn’t even look at her as he waited for her answer, and Adrianne couldn’t help it as a gentle, soft smile found her way on her face as she stared at him, watching as he stuffed himself with those greasy treats. She has seen it before, of course, but this time, she was watching Eobard Thawne, who didn’t pretend anything, and so she could see that his love for beef was truly genuine. It was amusing to say at least, and when he finally glanced up to look at her, she fought the urge to take a napkin and wipe the smear of ketchup from his cheek. “I am exactly who I said I am,” she said at the end, the smile still playing on her lips. “if you’re asking about my name, that is.” she added.

“And the rest?” he returned, curious, as he popped another french fry into his mouth.

“That is a bit more complicated, but bear with me.” she nodded, as she opened her own bag and lazily sucked at her milkshake. “Ok, first thing, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I know a lot about you. And no, you and I have never met before. But I have met another version of you and he told me about your future. Right now, what you need to know, is that you’re supposed to die.” she said, and she crinched when she realised how crude that sounded, so she quickly added. “Not now, in about two months.”

Eobard Thawne processed this information carefully, watching the woman before him. “How?” he asked simply, his eyes forrowed in thought as he observed her. It was the strangest thing, sitting with her here like this, but after his initial distrust, he could now see that she clearly didn’t have anything treacherous in mind, she just wanted to chat. 

She was acting naturally now, he could see it, and in the last few minutes they’ve been talking she slipped from being guarded and slightly nervous back into the fun-loving, kind person he’s been working with for the last half a year. Gradually, she let her guard down, sliding along the wall as she sat down, as if she wasn’t afraid of him at all. Furthermore, she was acting like she genuinely believed what she was saying, and that he should believe it too, as unbelievable as it all seemed.

There was also another thing he noticed, a certain familiarity with which she spoke to him at times, as if she had, truly, known him for years, and from the way she spoke it seemed like they were on good terms. He wasn’t yet sure if he was willing to believe her, but, her story sounded intriguing, and since there were no other pressing matters right now, he supposed, if she was really here to help him, the least he could do is to hear her out.

“I was told that one of your ancestors killed himself to stop you.” she replied, and she watched as the wheels in his head started turning in one particular direction. “I can only assume he meant Eddie.” she confirmed, and then she sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to pry, and you…” she stopped, correcting herself. “he didn’t tell me a lot of details, but after what I’ve heard…” she paused. “after what I’ve seen, I have made it my personal mission to come back here.”

“To do what?” he asked. Of all the things she said so fair, this one seemed like a genuine piece of important information. Eddie Thawne was a factor in his game that he knew he had to be careful about, as the detective was prone to impulsive, spontaneous actions. If this young apparent guardian angel of his spoke the truth, than he would have to be extra cautious to keep his ancestor out of trouble.

She raised her eyes to meet his, her expression serious. “To save you.” she spoke, and those three words felt somewhat heavy as they came out of her mouth. She stared at him intently, and there was a lot of pain and worry on her face as she did. He’s seen that look sometimes as dr. Wells in the eyes of his team, but Eobard Thawne was not used to people looking at him like that, yet here was this young woman, and he could see it clearly as he looked at her that she was worried about him. A question suddenly occured to him as to why was she here in this time if she already knew him in another, but the answer came to him quickly as he looked into those sad eyes.

“The other version of me that you knew… he died too, didn’t he?” the Reverse-Flash asked at the end, and she closed her eyes sadly, nodding her head. “Yes.” she voiced. “And there was nothing I could do to stop it, so instead, I decided to come here and fix things for you instead. And I know how dangerous it can be to try and change the timeline, you already gave me that lecture once.” she spoke quickly as she saw the look on his face. “Where I come from is more like an alternate timeline…” she paused, trying to put words together. “one that isn’t really yours to begin with, so it’s not like I’m endangering anything here terribly, especially since I wasn’t originally a part of any of this…”

She was not making much sense in her blabbering, and he confirmed that when he sighed and gave her a tired smile. “You’re gonna have to explain that.”

“Yeah, sorry.” she apologized, followed by a slight, awkward chuckle. “There’s just so many things I have to tell you, and it’s difficult to choose at which end to start.”

“How about you start at the beginning?” he offered, and she nodded.

“Yeah, I can do that.” she said, squirming a little as she was uncomfortable sitting on the cold floor as it dug into her bum rather painfully. To her astonishment though, he stepped off the wheelchair, and with a gesture he offered it to her instead. As surprised as she was, he wasn’t utterly sure why he did that, but it felt somehow appropriate, not out of common courtesy, but for some reason, he could truly feel some sort of connection to her. 

If his speed was at its full capacity, he could run into the negative speed force and easily confirm everything she was saying, right now, he could only rely on her words, but a small part of him already knew them to be the truth. She gave him a bright, grateful smile as he leaned against the wall, and listened as her voice fell into a gentle, narrative tone as she began to recount her past to him. “So, for me, this whole thing started about half a year ago, but we’ll get to that in a minute. For you, however, it all began with an event that will one day be known… as Flashpoint.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry about the bit of a cliffhanger here, the story will be featured in the next chapter, where you'll learn a bit about Adrianne and her past and how it led to her current situation. :) Should be easy for you to guess if you watched the Legends of Tomorrow. :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hallo everyone, sorry it took so long to write a new chapter, I was very busy during the last few months. This chapter, however, is the longest one yet, and takes place mostly in the second season of the Legends of Tomorrow, I hope you enjoy it and that it answers some questions you may have. :)

Flash: The Serpent’s Tale

Chapter 5.

October, 2014

This story began, as good stories sometimes do, with a simple meeting. That day was a nice and chilly morning, with just a tinge of the slowly approaching winter, and while the Flash celebrated his recent victory over his childhood bully, Tony Woodward, it was also the day when the Serpent first set foot into Central City. She was in her civil clothes as she walked through the streets, enjoying the sights and the cheerful atmosphere, so different to what she was used to from Gotham. The Batman’s city rarely let go of its gothic, gloomy ambience, even in daylight, while this city constantly glowed with its own inner light. It was the city of joy, and hope, and being here was incredibly nice, while at the same time, it wasn’t as overwhelming in all its aspects as Metropolis tended to be, which is why she chose this place as her new home, or at least, for a time.

And so it was that the Serpent, or, as you now know, Adrianne Blake, found herself walking through the city, looking around in awe, breathing in the crisp morning air as she slowly neared her destination. At the moment, she was at the waterfront, at the south end of town, in an area that was mostly used for industrial purposes, and it was filled with old warehouses, many of which were long since forgotten by whoever was originally using them. It was not a nice neighbourhood, and she was not particularly happy to be here, but she was here to meet with a man who was recommended to her as someone who could give her a good head start.

She stopped when she reached a corner of the street, looked carefully at the names on the signs, and then she turned towards a large building right at the edge of the river. A few moments later, she was standing in front of a large warehouse door, facing towards the pier. She shook a little as the cold wind blew past her, and then, slowly, she knocked on the door. She found herself facing the very man she came here to visit. Almost middle-aged, with handsome features and a practical, no nonsense attitude, Leonard Snart was a man who commanded respect, and while in the future he was meant to be a hero, at the time the two of them were more or less on the same level. He had a certain reputation in his chosen line of work, as did she, so neither really had to introduce themselves to the other.

“Hmm…” he hummed lazily as he let his eyes roam over her. “you’re definitely a lot shorter than I imagined.” he commented, and she chuckled, not at least a bit insulted. She got that comment quite a lot, but her height never truly bothered her, as, most of the time, it was nothing but helpful in allowing her to hide and slip past people unnoticed, especially when she found herself in a tight spot. “Well, you’re definitely a lot older and I wasn’t going to tell you.” she jabbed, a benign smile playing on her face. Snart gave a short, unamused snort and then he stepped away from the door to let her inside. As messy as you would expect an old warehouse to be, it looked like a comfortable lair, and she was led to a small area that seemed to be reserved for meetings just like this. “This warehouse is just a temporary fix, we’ll be moving out of here soon enough.” the man commented as he saw her appraising look, and she turned to look at him. “We?” she asked questioningly.

At that moment, another person appeared in a door on the other side of the warehouse. It was a somewhat burly, strongly built man, something you would more likely imagine when hearing the word thug. His name was Mick Rory, and he was an arsonist, who would, in a near future, become known as the criminal Heat Wave. She heard of him too, of course, he was known as being rather hot-headed (no pun intended), impulsive and a bit unreliable at times. Unlike Leonard Snart, Mick was a man of simple tastes and he preferred brute force over thinking things through, so it was slightly surprising for Adrianne to see them together.

Presently, the aforementioned pyromaniac entered the room, holding a bottle of beer in his hand, took one glance at their visitor and then turned to his friend. “Who’s the chick?” he asked in his gruff voice, and Adrianne had a hard time not to chuckle. Mick Rory was obviously a brute lacking any sort of tact or consideration towards others, and there was nothing about him that should’ve made him in any way likeable to her, and yet, he somehow was. He looked like a giant teddy bear, a grumpy, foul mannered teddy bear.

She flashed a friendly smile and looked over at Snart, who promptly introduced her. “Mick, this is Adrianne Blake, the Serpent, from Gotham.” he spoke, putting an emphasis on her criminal name. “She’s here to talk business, so try to behave yourself.” As soon as he finished the sentence, the room was suddenly filled with noise as Mick sank into an old armchair and belched loudly and Adrianne shot Snart an amused look, before he sighed and motioned for her to sit down as well.

She lowered herself onto a small sofa and crossed her legs. “So what can we do for you, miss Blake?” Snart began. “From the brief message you send me, I understand you’re interested in some… professional guidance?” He gave her a questioning look and she straightened herself a little in her seat as she cleared her throat. “Yes, precisely. You see, I am planning to stay here for a while, maybe settle down in this city if I like it here. I asked around a bit and you are widely considered to be the best in the job, so I was hoping you could give me some helpful tips as to how things work in this city.” he stared at her, his face emotionless as she spoke and she gave him a reassuring smile. “I am not asking for a courtesy, of course, I am willing to pay for such a favour. Furthermore, I’d like to assure you, I do not intend in any way to intrude upon your operation, I take great care in making sure my own contracts do not cross anyone else’s interest.”

“I don’t like her, she talks like a fancy lawyer or somethin’.” Mick decided to interject at that moment, not paying the conversation any attention anymore, but his partner chose to ignore him as he studied the woman in front of him. “You know…” he began, drawling the words a bit. “You may actually be of some use to me. I’ve heard interesting things about you. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to test you a bit, see what you can do.” he said, and she nodded, listening intently as she waited for his request. Snart studied her for a second more, and then he sat down across from her and made himself comfortable, before he continued: “There is a certain item I’m interested in and you’re going to get it for me. Are you in?”

<xxxxxxxxx>

The “item” in question turned out to be a golden ruby inlaid necklace, purchased a short time ago in an auction, which was a huge deal in the media even outside of Central City, as it appearantly belonged to some rich older lady, along with a few other pieces, who died a sudden death as a widow and, having no other family, her estate was eventually sold to whoever had the means to afford it and now, the necklace was stored in a vault in a house in one of the richer parts of town. With the house being a literal showroom filled with all kinds of valuable stuff, it was well guarded, and it was therefore a good challenge to test whether she was worthy of her mantle as a thief.

Of course, Snart did, in fact, heard of her special abilities to make herself disappear, and so it was a little surprise for him when she did eventually turned up at his hideout again, with a fresh bruise, but a happy smile on her face, and handed him the necklace. He grinned as he weighed the piece of jewelry in his hands, the gold heavy and solid, and then he pointed at the blue-ish patch on her chin. “Did you run into a wall?” he mocked, and she chuckled. “No, a guard. I do tend to get careless on my way out. But he literally didn’t know what hit him back.” she answered and they both laughed, before Snart invited her inside.

A few moments later, they were standing outside the big warehouse door, and Adrianne was watching the calm surface of the water, drinking an offered cup of coffee. It was a pleasant night, not too cold yet, and they both enjoyed the breeze coming from the river. “Where’s your friend?” she asked as Snart joined her. “Running a few errands for me, he’s good for that, at least.” he answered, dismissively. “It’s surprising you get along at all, you two are like... fire and ice.” she couldn’t help but comment, which elicited a short laugh from her companion. “You’re right of course, and trust me, his impulsiveness gets on my nerves sometimes. But he’s very useful when you need a cannon. You just need to motivate him properly.”

She glanced at him briefly from the corner of her eye. Even as a criminal, Adrianne was a kind person, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about the obvious derision in the man’s voice. It wasn’t her business, however, and she decided to adress the matter at hand instead. “So what now?” she said, and turned to him as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Did I prove myself enough?”

“You did.” Snart answered and gave her one of his rare smiles. “In fact, I would like to offer you a part in a plan to make this city safer for… our kind of people.” he said, and she looked at him, intrigued. “There’s really no better way to get to know the town a bit better than to involve yourself with its affairs directly. There’s a new hero in town, some kid, calls himself the Flash. He’s fast, and I mean like real fast. Fast like lightning. I’ve tangled with him already and he is good, but he is still new to this and he has one significant weakness on top of it.”

“Which is?”

“People, miss Blake.” Snart said simply, and then added. “Last time, we met in this theatre while I was stealing this diamond, and instead of attacking me, he kept running around in circles saving the people I was shooting at. Then there was a security guard coming from the theatre hall and when the Flash wasn’t fast enough to save him, he actually let me go trying to see if the guard was still alive.”

“Hmm…” the Serpent hummed, processing the information. “So you want my help getting rid of this… Flash? You know I’m not all that comfortable with killing people. It’s not my preferred type of job.” she looked at him, slightly uncomfortable. At the very least, killing heroes was something she definitely did not take part in back at home. If the Batman was tolerant of her, he definitely wouldn’t if she took things to the next level like this in Gotham.

“Yes, well, he seems like a decent chap and all that, but I don’t see any other way around this. If you have a problem, you gotta deal with it before it gets out of hand, and this guy can’t be… persuaded to leave us alone in a more conventional way, at least not until I know more about him. I am open to suggestions, though, if you have any..” he prompted, and Adrianne was about to add her own input to the situation, but then she stopped. Frowning, she looked around as she felt a slight change in the atmosphere, the air charged with a strange energy that made the hair at the back of her neck stand up. Then, there was a gust of wind and a whooshing sound somewhere nearby and she whirled around to see what it was.

That was the first time the Serpent laid her eyes on the man known as the Reverse-Flash, his original, blond version. This of course wasn’t entirely the original, as this version of Eobard Thawne was a remnant of a timeline that no longer existed, but he was in every way a copy of the speedster who once tried to change his destiny and failed, and was now eager to try again. For now though, she didn’t know who he was, and at first she shot a questioning look to Snart, silently asking whether this was the “Flash” he was referring to. Sensing her question the criminal shook his head, but it wasn’t needed as, from the look on his face, she could see he was as confused as she was.

“I appologize for the intrusion.” the unknown visitor began to speak then, a little out of breath, flashing a bright smile and, despite being unsure of this stranger’s intentions, Adrianne felt a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. The man had a rich, pleasant voice and while there was a certain coldness in his blue eyes, that disappeared the moment a smile lit up his otherwise rather stern looking face. His posture radiated confidence as he took a step towards them and she cocked her head to the side in curiosity as she observed the strange yellow suit he was wearing.

“Who are you?” she asked tentatively and he flicked his eyes to her almost as if he just noticed her standing there. “My name is Eobard Thawne,” he began. “but I am sorry, young lady, my time is precious and I am not here to talk to you.” His voice was anything but apologetic as he said this and only her growing interest in him curbed her from feeling slightly insulted. It was surprisingly Snart who defended her though, as he spoke: “That’s all right, she’s my associate and a member of my crew. Who are you?” he repeated her question and she could see some disapproval appearing on Thawne’s face briefly. He looked her over with his piercing, bright eyes, before he sighed and conceded. “Very well. As I said, my name is Eobard Thawne, and I have come here from the future. I am here to make you an offer, mr. Snart, and to give you a chance to fix a terrible mistake you don’t even know you’re going to make.”

Adrianne blinked and then glanced over at Snart to see what he thought about this. She had no problem believing the man, he looked serious enough and besides, she was from Gotham, and she has seen everything from magic to people who should have been dead and yet weren’t. Meanwhile, her new partner stared at their visitor a little incredulously, but it seemed his new acquaintance with the Flash has changed his conception of the world a bit, and so, after a few seconds, he just asked: “What mistake would that be?”

Eobard Thawne’s posture changed as he began to speak, putting his hands behind his back as he paced before them, and the way he presented his speech sounded like a professor reciting his lecture. “I’ll try to put it shortly for you as I really don’t have all the time in the world. As surprising as that will sound, in the year 2016 you and your… partner, Mick Rory, will be recruited by a Time Master, which I suppose is another term for what you might call a professional time meddler, by the name of Rip Hunter, into his little band of misfits called the Legends, to fight a dangerous adversary across time and space. Some success will be achieved, some losses will be taken, and at the end of it your team will uncover and defeat a much grander scheme, during which you, mr. Snart…” at this point the speedster stopped and gave the rogue a meaningful look. “will sadly meet your end. In fact, you will sacrifice yourself to save the others. Does that sound like something you would do?” he asked mockingly to which Snart shook his head with a frown.

“Definitely not. Why would I do something that stupid? And why the hell did we accept such an offer in the first place? Mick and I are not interested in being heroes.”

“That is something I really don’t know. Perhaps you were bored?” the man in the yellow suit shrugged dismissively. “It doesn’t really matter, though. I have run into certain complications, and I need your… assistance, mr. Snart. In exchange, I am offering you an opportunity to not only avoid your fate, but to quite literally get whatever your heart desires the most.”

“How?” intrigued, the rogue with a penchant for freezing things asked, while next to him, Adrianne listened to every word intently. Eobard Thawne smiled as he observed his audience. “I have been searching for an artifact called the Spear of Destiny. Its magic allows whoever possesses it to change reality in any way they desire. Me and my… associates were close to acquiring it, but then I’m ashamed to admit the Legends got the best of us. They now have the Spear and while they might try to use it themselves, I suppose they will more likely intent to destroy it. Now finding them won’t be a problem, but getting the Spear from them might be a more delicate matter unless we have a little… let’s be crude and say an ace up our sleeves.”

“And why do you think that would be me?” asked Snart, a little confused.

“Well because mr. Rory is still part of the Legends, mr. Snart.” Thawne said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “On the outside, he is a part of the team, but I can’t imagine those self-righteous “heroes” ever trusting a criminal like he is, and that makes him an easy target. He could get us the Spear, mr. Snart, if he was properly motivated. And who would be better for that than his partner?” the speedster added slyly, his eyes shining in wicked delight, and Snart nodded, understanding what was needed from him clearly. He wasn’t eager to be ordered around by whoever this clown was, but for now, he would happily do it, if only to prevent himself from becoming a soft-hearted idiot with no sense of self-preservation.

At that moment, there was a beeping sound coming from a strange watch-like device on Thawne’s wrist and Adrianne narrowed her eyes when, for a second, she saw the man’s face twist in what looked like terror, before he collected himself. “All right, mr. Snart. Shall we go?” he said, offering his hand to the younger man and Adrianne, realising that she was going to be left behind, quickly cut in. “Wait, can I come too? This sounds quite amazing, I want in.”

It was quite clear from Thawne’s expression that he wanted to refuse. It was enough that he was forced to bring another incompetent fool into the mix after the painful experience of working with two of them, and he wasn’t interested in taking on whoever this little stray was as well, but Snart, for whatever reason, came to her rescue once again when he said: “I would recommended it, she’s quite good at her job, she might actually be useful to your plan, whatever it is.” Still not convinced, but knowing his time was running out, the speedster looked at the young woman and the pleading look she was giving him, and gave in. “Damn it, all right, just come on.” he grumbled impatiently, taking her hand in a firm grip as she threw a grateful smile in Snart’s direction, and then they were off.

<xxxxxxxxx>

And that was it. Before meeting Eobard Thawne, Adrianne Blake was a simple thief. Well, not simple, such a statement would hardly do her justice. Only a few years back, she used to be one of the smaller fish in Gotham, but she worked her way up, especially after she gained her special abilities. Over time she became a favourite go to person among the crime bosses in Gotham and a good friend to all the lower criminals and rogues. But she was never exceptionally ambitious and she most certainly never dreamed of being among the stars. And yet that was exactly where she found herself now as she stared at her surroundings in this strange and slightly terrifying place.

After departing their timeline, Eobard Thawne took them to the Vanishing Point, a place located outside of time and space, the former fortress of the corrupted Time Masters, now an empty, but still habitable ruin, an ideal place for someone who didn’t want to be found. There, she was introduced to the two other members of what she later learned was called the Legion of Doom. Both former members of the League of Assassins, she was feeling a bit apprehensive towards them at first, after all, she was from Gotham, where the Batman had clashes with the League and their leader, Ra’s al Ghul, like every other Tuesday, but that soon faded when she realised neither one of them really seemed like the League material. Certainly not Damien Darkh, who seemed hardly capable of committing himself to anything but his own ends. On one hand, Adrianne liked him, he had a cheerful personality and never failed to make her laugh with his humour which was as dark as his name, on the other hand he was impatient, proud, easy to anger and a bit sadistic. When he smiled, the twinkle in his eyes betrayed what a cruel man he actually was.

The other man present was Malcolm Merlyn. She has never been in Starling City before, but she heard some things about him, and she honestly wasn’t sure what to think. In many ways he was the very opposite of Damien Darkh, where the blonde haired man eagerly jumped at an opportunity to use violence, he preferred cunning and subtlety, which was something Adrianne always admired, and at the same time, he seemed a bit more down-to-earth and definitely more friendly. He was kinder to people, she noticed, and he avoided killing when he could, but later she was to learn that his greatest talent was his ability to bend everything to his advantage, and his willingness to do so even if it was to hurt other people.

The first night they spend there, she could hardly sleep. She knew she should, for in a few hours they were planning to go after the Spear, but she was too excited by the fantastical environment she found herself in. She walked the silent corridors and wandered through the empty, half ruined halls, wondering how she could even breathe in the first place as she observed the unblinking stars and floating nebulae through one of the windows. So fascinated by all the incredible things around her she was that she failed to notice the footsteps behind her. 

“I would recommend being careful.” a man’s voice said. “Most of the place is still intact, but the damaged parts can be a bit unstable.” She whirled around and smiled timidly when she saw Eobard Thawne standing there. He wasn’t wearing the yellow suit this time, but a black leather jacket and trousers, and if she was to be honest, he looked really attractive. He seemed a bit anxious when he brought them here before and vanished right after that, but now he was standing there wearing a bright smile in anticipation of their victory, which seemed to make him a bit more tolerant of her as he came closer.

“Where were you?” she dared to ask gently, and he just shrugged, brushing it off with a simple: “Had to rush off, that’s all. There will be time for explanations later.” he added, when she saw the slightly disgruntled look she gave him. “How do you like it here?” he asked, changing the subject, and Adrianne sighed, not happy there was something being kept from her. She decided to let it go for now though. “It’s incredible.” she said truthfully. “Thank you for bringing me along.” She took a few steps towards him. “So who are you exactly?” she asked with curiosity. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“No.” Thawne replied. “I already told you I am from the future. I am a speedster, I have the ability to run at fast speed, which also allows me to travel to different points in time.”

“So the Flash is something like you?” she spoke, as she remembered what Snart told her before they were interrupted. It was an innocent question, but she raised her eyebrows in surprise when she saw the grimace the man before her made at her remark. “Oh…” she let out slowly. “I guess the two of you are not friends then.” She was a bit worried, sensing she must have intruded upon a sensitive subject, but Eobard Thawne was, for a change, in a good mood, so he just grinned. 

“Yeah, that’s one way to put it.” he replied. “The Flash and I go way back, or rather, forward. Fortunately, when we’re done here, he shouldn’t be a problem.” The man known as the Reverse-Flash looked at her when she saw her jawn suddenly. “Now, miss Blake, I believe you should get some sleep, we’re going to a battlefield soon.” He gently gripped her shoulders as he turned her towards her room and with a chuckle she followed his instruction, glancing back at him with a playful smile, before she disappeared around the corner. Eobard stared after her for a while, shaking his head in amusement, before his face once again twisted into a sneer as he thought about his enemy who got him into this mess in the first place. Then, he zoomed away so he too could get some much needed rest, as little as he could get of it while the Black Flash was still snapping at his heels.

<xxxxxxxxx>

1916, Battle of the Somme

The first note she made to herself the next day was that of all the times and places she could travel to if she had a time machine, a war torn field in the middle of the First World War would definitely not be her first choice, or even a tenth. Her second thought was that it was a shame that she couldn’t get a talk with J.R.R. Tolkien herself, as she was very fond of his books, but she knew that it would be a bit too reckless. She did, however, get a glimpse of the man as she went with Snart to do a little reconnaissance. 

The trenches were a busy, noisy place and they were barely noticed as they stood among the tents and old cars. Adrianne was standing there, next to her partner, wearing her mask, which Snart commented on with a slightly mocking expression as he stared at her. “Paranoid much?” he asked, and she grinned when she realised what he was referring to. “Just careful.” she answered, and then she nudged him gently as she glanced across the camp and saw Mick Rory heading towards one of the field hospitals with another member of the Legends. She then looked at Snart, waiting for his instructions. “All right,” he said. “I’m going to have my heartfelt reunion with Mick, you have a look around, see if you can find the other Legends, figure out what they're planning.” Solemnly, she nodded, and as her partner strode away, a determined look on his face, she darted across the field towards the trenches, keeping herself out of sight as she kept an eye out for the group of time travellers they were looking for.

As she moved across the dusty field, she found herself being lucky when she saw what looked like two soldiers carrying another man between themselves, supporting him as he was barely able to stand. She was, of course, thoroughly briefed back at the base, given the descriptions and pictures of all the members of the Legends so she could recognise them, and so she knew immediately her quarries had come to her instead. They moved slowly, so it was easy to follow them as they made their way over to their ship. There, however, she stopped, for coming on board was something she didn’t consider a safe option. She was told of the ship’s clever A.I., an advanced version of the same artificial consciousness Eobard himself once used, and she was worried that her presence there would be easily discovered despite her invisibility. Furthermore, while spying on the Legends would surely allow her to discover where they were going, she had no way of sending a message to her team once she was in, and if the Legends already had Tolkien with them, there was no reason for them to go back out there.

She cursed silently as she turned and walked back the way she came, but, as it turned out, she didn’t need to worry, as Snart’s meeting with Mick was more than fruitful. The rather simple minded rogue, in some strange notion that Snart was nothing but a mere hallucination, has inadvertently told his old friend their entire plan, and once they knew what they were looking for, it wasn’t difficult to find out where exactly they should go. Eobard was right when he assumed that the Legends would want to destroy the Spear of Destiny rather then using it and so now they were chasing after them to prevent them from finding the one thing that would allow them to achieve their goal.

As she, side by side with Snart, Darkh and a group of trusted German soldiers, walked towards the beautiful old cathedral in the french city of Amiens, she felt a pang of anger as she observed the damage the war has done to the magnificent religious structure. The inside of the church didn’t look much better, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it as she saw the group of men inside pondering over an old skeleton buried in a newly uncovered hole in the wall.

“It’s nice when people make it easy for you, isn’t it?” she observed as her and Snart made an entrance. She wasn’t usually one to make cliché villain entrance lines, but it was fun and her two companions seemed to love this sort of thing. Snart laughed at her comment as he looked over at the group who all stared at him with surprise on their faces. She saw the quizzical look they were giving her, not knowing who she was, but they certainly recognised Snart, and the sight of him gave them a slight shock, especially poor Mick, who, after seeing that Snart didn’t come alone this time, but had a girl with him that had no reason to be a part of his hallucinations, finally realised that what he was seeing was not one of his delusions at all. Adrianne felt truly bad for the man as she saw the looks he received from his team for accidentally revealing their plans to the enemy.

And then the shooting started and things got a little crazy for a few moments as the Legends tried to scamper off into safety while the man she presumed to be Tolkien in an outstanding display of bravery dodged bullets while making a hasty rubbing of the skeleton’s shield. Part of her was relieved the man didn’t come to harm even as she stared with worry at the retreating forms of the rest of the Legends. While Damien gave new commands to his soldiers, she and Snart approached the grave in the wall, with Snart letting out a short contemptuous snort. 

“I would expect something a little more grand for a knight.” he commented and she replied, absent-mindedly as she stared at the shield placed over the corpse. “They were knights, that equals humility. And this one was guarding a secret worth the modesty. Look at this.” she said, intrigued as she pointed at the strange markings in the middle of the shield. “This looks like a map. Do you have a piece of paper?” she said, rolling her eyes at him as he shook his head lazily, and then she looked around and ripped a piece of cloth from one of the overturned altars. It was, fortunately, a rather soft fabric, and, grabbing a piece of charred wood from the ground, she placed it over the engraving and made a rubbing of it with a few fast strokes of her hand. It wasn’t as perfect as she was hoping for, but it was still readable, and she held it in her hand carefully as they made their way outside.

Having now acquired the same information as the Legends, they no longer had to chase after them, as they knew exactly where the Legends would be and so the only thing they had to do now was wait for them to make their move. And when the time finally came, Adrianne had to admit that arranging a temporary ceasefire between the two warring sides was not only an impressive feat to achieve, but also an incredible idea, which unfortunately for the Legends also allowed the Legion to quite leisurely stroll across the battlefield to their position. Then, when the two groups of mortal enemies finally confronted one another, as was predicted, Mick Rory, finally succumbing to his doubts and his regrets, gave the Spear to the Legion and joined them on their quest to reshape the world as they saw fit. And as the Legends escaped the battlefield in shock and despair, the Legion looked on in glee before Eobard pulled them all to safety…

<xxxxxxxxx>

“So what happened then?” asked a different, dark haired version of Eobard Thawne as he listened intently to the fascinating tale that was unfolding before him. “Did you use the Spear to change reality as you intended?”

“We did.” Adrianne nodded as she lazily stretched in the chair. They have been talking for about an hour now, managed to finish their meal as the story went on, and she was pleased to see he was really interested from the way his eyes shone as he listened. “While we were back in the First World War getting the Spear from the Legends, mr. Merlyn was searching for a book called the Kalabros Manuscript. Do you know it?” she challenged with a smile, and was slightly surprised when he answered readily. 

“According to the legends, it is the so called “word of God”, and contains magical incantations pertaining to the use of magical artifacts, specifically those of biblical nature.” Eobard spoke, and then he grinned when he saw the look on her face. “What? I read sometimes.” he added, making her laugh as she realised he was echoing her own words from a few months earlier. “As a scientist, I have an interest in all sorts of subjects. But let's get back to your story, shall we?” the speedster asked, and Adrianne continued, clearing her throat as she did so.

<xxxxxxxxx>

Doomworld Timeline, 2017

With the threat of the Legends out of the picture and the Spear firmly in their grasp, there was nothing stopping the group of criminals and rogues from using the artifact to fulfill their innermost desires. Damien Darkh made himself an appointed mayor of Starling City, living a life of comfort and luxury while the two woman warriors from the Legends, captain Sara Lance and the totem bearer, Amaya Jiwe, acted as his personal assassins and attended to his every whim, which mainly included mercilessly murdering every hero and vigilante who ever set foot into the city.

Malcolm Merlyn, who finally got a chance to get his life back together, not only got back his mostly dead family, but he also regained his position not only in his family business, but also, his position as the leader of the League of Assassins.

Eobard Thawne made himself the CEO of the newly rebuilt S.T.A.R. Labs, and through a series of environmental and global energy changes and inventions not only made the world an actually better place, but also gained a considerable amount of fame and fortune as not only the fastest, but also the smartest man in the world. He was truly enjoying this new version of the reality, a world that could practically belong to him if he truly wanted, a world that was his little playground, without the Flash being there to thwart his every plan. He kept the Legends close, especially those who had the intelligence to actually cause problems. Malcolm has made numerous comments on how he believed it was stupid to keep them alive, but Eobard believed in poetic justice, and it was an unending source of amusement watching them in their new roles, so humiliating to their actors whether they were aware of it or not.

Mick Rory and Leonard Snart stayed in Central City, where they lived as the two virtually undisputed kings of the whole town. They had wealth that could buy them everything and everyone they wanted, and so they could practically do whatever they felt like doing, without being afraid of being arrested or even bothered by the police. It was something that suited Snart perfectly, though Mick, as it seemed, had a different idea of what the word fun actually meant. As for Adrianne, she was originally on their big proverbial joyride with them, but as much as it was enjoyable for a while, she found out that it didn’t exactly reconcile with what she wanted from her life. 

On the other hand, she found herself constantly thinking about a certain charming speedster. As free as Mick and Snart thought themselves to be, they were still occasionally required to attend to Eobard’s wishes, and at such occurrences, Adrianne would usually come with them. Eobard was kinder to her, perhaps because she was always ready to offer her assistance without looking so annoyed about it, and she truly loved spending time with the man. So, one day, she found herself in his office proposing an arrangement which Eobard accepted more out of intrigue than anything else.

She began working as his secretary, though she preferred the word assistant. Her working hours were shorter, because during the evening she was taking care of her own personal contracts, though most of these were things that she took care of for Eobard himself when he wasn’t interested in doing the dirty work on his own. Basically, she became what the two Legends women were for Damien Darkh, except she was doing it willingly, as a part of her job. And it wasn’t so difficult at all, as with the brain of a speedster, Eobard kept most of the important stuff in his memory, so there was very little paperwork to take care of. And to top it off, she could spend as much time staring at him as she wanted. Yes, it was a bit pathetic and she was aware of it, but she didn’t have much courage to tell him about her feelings. He was a proud man who could have any woman he wanted, they haven’t known each other for a long time and she didn’t feel like he would consider her worthy of him. 

And so she was sadly left to pine for him quietly. And it would have remained that way for a very long time, if it wasn’t for a clever idea made by a clever man who was still not content with how things were. Eobard’s biggest mistakes were always his pride and his arrogance with which he considered everyone being inferior to him and failed to consider them as any real threat. The problem was that his partners of choice were just as proud and arrogant as he was and they were not happy with the way they were treated. It started with the fact that the moment the reality was changed, Eobard destroyed the Kalabros Manuscript so that no one else would be able to use the Spear without his consent. It was a sign of mistrust and his unwillingness to share his power, and that made his partners angry.

The first one to speak out was Malcolm Merlyn. It happened one day while they were having one of their training sessions. Adrianne has seen Malcolm’s skill in combat, and she asked him to train her in order to make herself a more efficient fighter. He agreed, and the two of them were meeting regularly, or as much as the busy businessman could come to meet her. His training was not what she expected, and he was strict with her, relentless, but they always returned to their friendly relationship afterwards. And it was after one of those training sessions that he approached her about a matter that he was, for obvious reasons, reluctant to speak to Eobard just yet.

“Ok, here’s the thing, Adriane.” he said with a sigh, as he took a sip from his glass of whisky. She turned to him, her expression questioning as she waited for him to continue. She noticed he was a bit distracted tonight, as if something was seriously bothering him. “I do understand that Eobard was very generous when he allowed us to just plan everything out as we wanted and I am grateful to him for letting us be a part of this, yes I am.” he said, glancing at her as she sat there quietly, looking at him with expectant eyes. “But I cannot help but think we were played for fools here. Now Eobard is giving us the cold shoulder while he keeps the Spear of Destiny stashed God knows where.” 

Now it was Adrianne’s turn to sigh as she realised what was going on. She has noticed from the beginning that the dynamics between the members of the Legion of Doom has been less than ideal, and she was worried about the strain it was putting on their alliance. For Adrianne, it was natural to treat everyone she was working with fairly, even if she couldn’t expect the same in return, but Eobard was different, and he wasn’t always hiding just what he thought about his associates. What she was willing to tolerate for the sake of peace and quiet was too much for men who were themselves used to making the decisions.

“Listen, I’m sure he’s just trying to keep you from making a mistake.” she spoke softly, trying to think of a way to keep the situation from escalating. “You have made your mark on the world, you got what you wanted, he just doesn’t want you to use the Spear on trivialities so things don't get out of hand.”

“Trivialities?” he scoffed, but he relaxed a bit as he looked at her. He knew she wasn’t mocking him on purpose. They have known each other for almost a year now, and he actually liked this young woman. Always kind, a little too trusting maybe, but smart and determined when she wanted something, she had a talent to talk to people like him. He has told her of his previous dealings with the Arrow and the many tragedies that led him to be the man he was now, it was easy to talk to her, she wasn’t a criminal all the way and yet she never criticised anything he did, she just gave him her ear and expressed her sympathies. And she always had a smile ready for him, after being hated and belittled by so many, it was nice to be with someone from whom he didn’t have to hide anything. Someone who could actually understand how he was feeling now. “I would have you know that what I’m talking about are no trivialities. But I can’t change anything if Eobard is sitting on his magical wand like a damn dragon on its gold pile.”

Adrianne smiled at the comparison, but didn’t make her amusement any more audible as she looked at him with sympathy. “I understand, but this is something you will have to take up with him, Malcolm, I’m sorry. I could try talking to him, but it’s not like I can change anything.” she spoke gently, her statement followed by a moment of quiet stillness, before Malcolm changed the subject, asking curiously: “You know, I wanted to ask you for a while now, why exactly have you been spending so much time at S.T.A.R. Labs? I don’t understand why you would want to sit there all day doing a mundane desk job.”

Adrianne smiled slightly, turning her head to look at him only to find him staring at her. She would be reluctant to share this with the other members of the team, but this man she considered a friend, and so she decided to just let it out as she conceded: “I don’t.” she said, and then added. “Is it really so hard to guess, Malcolm?” She saw it in his eyes as the man came to a realisation and his question was spoken with a slight disbelief as he half asked, half stated. “You are in love with him?” It sounded funny, and a bit ridiculous as he said it, but it was the truth. Slightly embarrassed, she lowered her eyes to the table in front of her as a blush appeared on her cheeks, and so it happened that she missed the calculating look in Malcolm’s eyes completely as the wheels began to turn in his head, before he put a comforting hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently as his plan began to take form.

<xxxxxxxxx>

In light of their earlier conversation, Adrianne wasn’t surprised to find Malcolm Merlyn striding into Eobard’s office the day after, and with a slight hesitation she let him in, knowing that whatever conversation will occur inside was surely going to cause a storm. Of all the things she expected however, she did not expect what actually happened...

“...now Malcolm, as I was saying, you got everything you wanted, you should enjoy it. The world is literally yours for the taking, you should take joy in the spoils of your victory and stop worrying about things.” Eobard said cheerfully as he stared at the man who was once his partner in crime, and yet the false comradeship in his voice did nothing to cover up the dismissive undertone of his message, and Malcolm did not fail to notice it. He could not understand how they were able to keep up with it before, but he was seriously getting fed up with the way the speedster was treating them even now. Something needed to be done about it, and he took a deep breath as he stifled his anger and replaced his annoyed expression with a more pleasant one. He glanced outside the office, looking at the young woman who sat there, and he was determined to continue with his plan with a renewed resolve.

“You know,” the warrior began slowly, catching Eobard’s attention. “I think you ought to follow that advice yourself.” he spoke carefully, and the speedster looked at him with a slight frown. “What are you talking about, Malcolm?” he waited impatiently as the other man stepped a bit closer and spoke quietly. “Oh, come on, Eobard, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed how she keeps staring at you when you’re not looking.” Malcolm remarked, and, now that he thought about it, he honestly didn’t understand how Eobard himself could have missed the signs when he was with the young woman almost every day. “Or do you honestly think an adventurous young woman like that would willingly sit in an office all day just to do your paperwork?”

Eobard’s eyes went wide as he heard that, throwing a pointed look outside the office where the said woman was sitting, and sure enough, the moment their eyes met she looked away hastily and pretended to write something on her computer. “You think that…?” he said, a little hesitantly, and Malcolm nodded. “Eobard, that girl is totally into you, has been for some time I think. And I don’t know about you, but a girl this smart and beautiful, that’s not an opportunity you want to pass up. Trust me, if you won’t, one of us will steal her for ourselves eventually.”

With that, Malcolm left the office, a smirk playing on his face, but he kept it down as he threw a smile at Adrianne as he went past her. Meanwhile, back in the quiet of his office, Eobard was trying to think of his newest projects, but his thoughts kept going back to what Malcolm said. He looked outside again, staring at his young blond secretary, and he realised now how ridiculous it was indeed to think of her this way. She did not fit in an environment like this. And beautiful she was indeed as she glanced at him briefly and gave him a shy smile.

<xxxxxxxxx>

She was currently working on putting some data from a report into the computer when she felt Eobard’s eyes on her once again and she glanced over to give him a smile. A minute later, to her astonishment, he called her into his office and obediently, she stood up from her chair to follow his command. Entering the room, she first glanced at the section of the wall where she knew the Black Flash was imprisoned and she shivered slightly at the thought of it. She saw the creature for the first time on her first visit to the labs with Mick and Snart. That was also the day when Eobard finally told her about the circumstances that led him to start searching for the Spear in first place. The terrifying, zombie-like monster was very fascinating, but at the same time it has always given her the creeps.

Adrianne made her way over to Eobard and stood before him. “Yes, mr. Thawne?” she asked, and as she looked at him now, she noticed there was something strange in the look he was giving her, his blue eyes studying her closely. “Miss Blake,” he began, and she stared at him, giving him her full attention. “Do I have any engagements this evening?” he asked, and she answered readily. “Yes, actually, you have an appointment with…”

“Then cancel it.” he interrupted and she looked at him with a slight surprise before he clarified, and his words were accompanied by a smile that nearly made her heart skip a beat. “Miss Blake, I was wondering if you would accept an invitation to dinner this evening.” Eobard spoke, his voice calm, but from her immediate reaction he could see that Malcolm was most definitely right. At first, she looked at him with shock, but then he could see how hard it was for her to fight a smile as she turned her head away, biting her lower lip slightly before she lost the fight as the corners of her lips went up in excitement. “That would be my pleasure, mr. Thawne.” she said when she managed to get a hold of herself, and they both returned to work in a much better mood.

Later that day, for the first time ever, they left together, and he took her to a moderately expensive restaurant as he didn’t want her to feel too embarrassed, but he didn’t need to worry. She carried herself with a certain level of grace and distinguished elegance that didn’t seem fake, but rather complimented her usual personality and Eobard Thawne himself was amazed that they haven’t done this sooner. She drank the wine he bought for her and ate the delicious food and all the while they were having a very pleasant conversation. She wasn’t a scientist, that much was clear, but she was interested in everything he told her, and he could see that it wasn’t just out of politeness that she was listening to him.

He took her home to dress for the occasion and now she was sitting here, in a deep blue dress that fit very well with her blue eyes, and a silver necklace and earrings in the shape of a snake. It was incredible how much he didn’t know about this mysterious girl, and he found himself staring at her quite often as she kept throwing soft, coquettish smiles his way. She wasn’t dazzlingly gorgeous in a supermodel kind of way, but then again Eobard Thawne was not like Bruce Wayne who needed one of these hanging on his every arm for every party he attended. She was beautiful though, and she was genuinely interested in him, and, to his own surprise, he found himself feeling desire for this young, fascinating criminal.

So, when he finally paid for their meals as the mandatory part of the date was over and she walked outside with him, breathing the fresh air of that warm, summer night, he made her gasp slightly as she felt him take a firm hold of her hand. He gave her a meaningful look as he took a step closer. “I think that was enough of a date, don’t you think?” he said darkly, and before she had time to even open her mouth, they were already moving, and in the next second, she found herself on the roof of the S.T.A.R. Labs building, sitting down on the metal surface, but only for a moment as the speedster flicked inside the building and back, bringing back a few blankets to make them more comfortable. She looked around them in awe when she realised where they were, and there were slight protests on her tongue, but then she looked up at him and saw the man standing before her in that yellow Reverse-Flash suit that he loved to wear, and she could feel heat rising up into her neck and cheeks as she saw how the yellow leather hugged the muscles on his otherwise lean body.

He then lowered himself to her and almost growled as she felt his hot breath wash over her face. He put an arm around her waist, bringing her closer to him as his lips found her neck and she moaned in pleasure when he found a sensitive spot and massaged it gently with his tongue, before pulling away. “Is this what you wanted?” he said, his eyes darkened with desire, and she just sat there, unable to say a single word as she continued to take in the sight in front of her. “So, what now, miss Blake?” the speedster continued, and, taking a deep breath, she did what her instincts told her to do as she pulled him down to her and kissed him, their lips connecting in a wild and fierce kiss that went on for a while, until they were both quite out of breath, and by that time most of her clothes were already gone as well as most of his suit. The rest followed in a blink of an eye and Adrianne still could not believe she wasn’t in a dream even as they proceeded to engage in what was essentialy the best sex of her life…

<xxxxxxxxx>

“Miss Blake…” came suddenly the breathy interruption spoken in a slightly disgruntled voice, bringing her out of her thoughts as it continued. “I don’t think I need to know these particular details.” spoke Eobard Thawne in the voice of dr. Wells as he tried not to look too affected by what he just heard and Adrianne’s face flashed a deep red as she realised how much she said out loud.

“O-oh gosh.” she stuttered slightly in embarrassment. “I am so sorry.” she continued, placing a hand on her chest in an honest apology, but then she frowned slightly when she saw the strange look he was giving her. “What?” she asked nervously.

“Miss Blake,” he began, his face serious. “before we continue, there is something I have to ask you. I had my suspicions, but I wasn’t, until now, sure of the exact nature of the relationship you had with my time remnant. I have a feeling you have taken great lengths to get here, and since I wouldn’t want to hurt you, I need to say this beforehand. I do think you’re a very attractive woman, but I do not feel about you the same way as he did, and I certainly hope you’re not looking to me for a replacement.”

Adrianne stared at him for a second as she processed the words and then her face went a bit pale as she realised what he was insinuating. “No.” she said slowly, and she stared at him with honest eyes even if they did seem a bit sad. “No.” she repeated, more firmly this time. “This thing we had, it was a long time ago, and you are not him, not truly…” she trailed off as she raised her eyes to his and studied him, giving him a regretful look before she continued. “I have come back here, because I though it cruel that you should suffer the same fate twice, and I want nothing from you but your friendship, if you’re willing to give it.” 

After those words, Adrianne held up her hand, honestly hoping she didn’t freak him out too much, but then a smile lit up her face as Eobard took her hand and shook it, his features relaxing as he accepted her reassurance, and she stared at him quietly as she realised what was so different about this version of the Reverse-Flash. The previous, blonde version she knew was impulsive, prone to do things without really thinking them through, but this Eobard Thawne had an air of calm about him, a certain darkness that reminded her slightly of the Batman and the few short encounters she had with him. It was perhaps the fact that the man before her has been through a lot already and in that moment she felt a strong need to protect him from what was yet to come.

And then the moment was over when he let go of her hand, and returned her smile with his own, before he prompted her to continue. “So… what went wrong?” he asked, his voice gentle, and Adrianne suddenly sighed, climbed down from the chair and began to pace slightly as she remembered the last part of her story.

<xxxxxxxxx>

The moment it happened should have been a clear signal that something big and tragic was on its way and what was perhaps the saddest was that neither Eobard nor Adrianne saw it coming. A month has passed since they had their first date together, and for Adrianne it was some of the best days of her life, unfortunately, as the laws of this world dictate, nothing good can really last for long.

Adrianne was once again having a date with her beloved speedster, and it wasn’t something they did all the time, but Eobard liked to treat her like a princess sometimes and she adored when he did that. However, that day was meant to end in a very different way. She was supposed to meet Eobard in one of their favourite restaurants, but as she waited for him, she received a text message that another important meeting came up unexpectedly and he won’t be able to make it. She was dissapointed, surely, but she didn’t have a problem with it, and since this particular restaurant wasn’t far from S.T.A.R. Labs, she decided that she would make her way there first to take care of a few more things before heading home. As she stepped out of the elevator, she noticed how eerily quiet the floor was and as she began making her way towards the office, she suddenly stopped as she neared a section of the wall behind which she knew was a secret room that, in another time, was to be Eobard Thawne’s secret Time Vault.

Later she told herself that she shouldn’t have stopped and just walked away, but at that time, something inside her has urged her to take a look inside the room now. And when her fingers pressed the spot on the wall slightly and the metal before her parted, she froze on the spot as she saw the figures of Damien Darkh, Malcolm Merlyn, Leonard Snart and Mick Rory standing there, with Malcolm holding a piece of paper in one hand and the Spear in the other.

She looked at each of the men inside as the door closed behind her and at first, there was only confusion in her eyes as she did so. Then, Malcolm Merlyn made a mistake by asking her a question: “Adrianne, what are you doing here? I though you and Eobard will be out on a date again.” At those words, the young woman snapped out of her confusion as she pierced the warrior with her eyes, and the first slivers of anger appeared on her face. “Is that so?” she asked coldly as she glanced at the paper he was holding and recognised it to be the same spell he uttered on the day they used the Spear for the first time.

“I thought Eobard destroyed the Kalabros Manuscript.” she said, frowning, and Malcolm explained: “Yes, he did. But what he didn’t know is that I copied the spell before I even brought the book to him. I am not used to trusting people without having insurance, Adrianne.” the man was speaking calmly, but it had no effect on the young woman before him as her distressed mind began piecing everything together.

“You used me.” she stated as she stared at him in disbelief. “You needed a way to keep Eobard distracted so he wouldn’t notice you’ve been playing around with his toys, that’s why you put the two of us together after I told you I was in love with him, not because of any goodness of your heart!” her voice went a bit higher as tears appeared in her eyes, and if she wasn’t so upset, she might have noticed that Malcolm actually had a slightly regretful look in his eyes as he defended himself. “Just wait a minute, Adrianne. What you say is true, we have used you as a distraction, but I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t something you honestly wanted. We have been careful and only changed small things, so he wouldn’t notice, and in the process, we allowed you to be happy, didn’t we?” he said, and Adrianne sighed as part of his speech was indeed true, but then she returned: “That might be true, Malcolm, but don’t you realise what kind of position you put me in? If he ever finds out what you did…”

“That would certainly be undesirable.” said Damien Darkh, who was quite fed up with the exchange by that time, while the two other rogues just watched from a corner of the room, and in the next second, Adrianne found herself lifted up into the air by an invisible force, the oxygen coming into her lungs suddenly cut off as the same force pressed against her windpipe. In the short time she had before her brain started blacking out, she realised what a formidable enemy Damien Darhk was with his magic and how foolish Eobard was for not taking him more seriously. “So I think it would be best if we just tied up this little loose end.” Damien continued and as he finished his sentence he curled his fingers into a fist, squeezing her throat a little tighter.

At that moment though Malcolm came to her rescue: “Damien, wait, there’s no need for killing her. She’s not going to tell him anything. She’s right, after all. If he was to find out about our little operation, he'd have no reason to believe that she wasn’t in on it as well, he might even kill her. So she has no choice but to keep quiet about all this.”

It was clear that Damien was not convinced of what his partner was saying, but with a grunt he released her throat in the end and she fell to the ground, luckily not breaking anything in the process. Malcolm then bent down, offering her his hand to help her up, but she refused as she looked up at him, her eyes stormy with anger as she stood up by herself. “Thank you for saving me, mr. Merlyn.” she said, keeping her dignity. “But it doesn’t change anything. You know, I’ve heard a lot of things about you, things I didn’t want to believe, but now I can see you’re about as trustworthy as a nest of vipers. I wish you a good evening, gentlemen.” she briefly turned to the other men before she stormed out of the room and then she didn’t stop until she found herself in the safety of her home. Only then, in the quiet darkness of her bedroom, only then, she allowed herself to cry.

<xxxxxxxxx>

“So, you kept quiet about what they were doing?” Eobard asked, and there was no sign of any emotion in his voice as he did so. “You didn’t tell me anything?”

This caused Adrianne to smile in sad amusement as she answered him: “Oh, on the contrary.” she chuckled. “It took a few days, but eventually, I had to tell you everything. I wasn’t going to lie to you, and you knew there was something wrong anyway.” Adrianne wasn’t quite sure when she started referring to Eobard in a second person like this, but the man before her didn’t seem to have a problem with it. 

She bit her lip nervously as she frowned, remembering. “So, I just spilled everything. And… man you were angry. But for some reason, you trusted me, I don’t know why.” she sighed. “As for the others, I had to beg a lot to keep you from outright killing them, and I’m still not sure why I did that either, that whole week was very emotional for me.” Adrianne chuckled mirthlessly and took a deep breath as she prepared for what she had to say next.

“It was in that time when I learned that you actually intended to destroy the Spear from the beginning. I remember you made quite the show of it. To make matters worse, Mick Rory, who, for some reason, decided that his situation wasn’t at all what he wanted, somehow helped the Legends regain their memories. And when the Spear was destroyed, they travelled back to 1916 to take it from their earlier versions and either finally destroy it or keep it somewhere safe. You didn’t want me to come with you at first, but I insisted, and this time I took my whole gear, you dropped me off there, you went to get Malcolm, I went to talk to Snart and Damien and then we all went after the Legends, both of them as it turned out, while you went to get some… reinforcements.”

“Reinforcements?” asked Eobard, raising an eyebrow at her curiously and Adrianne smiled as she recalled the amusing memory. “Yes. There was a battle, and we did manage to actually kill some of them, but then Damien and Malcolm got knocked out and when Snart was taken out of commision too, I followed my better judgement and quietly left the scene. That’s when you showed up, and here comes the fun part, because you didn’t, in fact, come alone. You actually went back in time and brought back an army of your own time remnants, I do believe there was at least thirty.” she clarified with a quiet chuckle.

“So, whatever was left of the Legends was quickly slaughtered, but unfortunately, their captain managed to get a hold of the Spear, and in all the action she had enough time to actually use it. She used to Spear itself to remove its power, so you wouldn’t be able to use it yourself. And… when you were about to kill her with it…” at this point she paused, looking away as the painful image found its way to the surface. “It was revealed that she also freed the Black Flash from his prison and called him there. And when the monster suddenly appeared, you didn’t even have time to run. It just grabbed you and stabbed its hand into your ribcage, and then I watched as you disintegrated before my eyes along with the Spear.”

There was a moment of silence as Adrianne took a few moments to collect herself. She looked around at the room around them, quietly reminding herself that she was on the road to fix everything that happened. In the meantime, Eobard stared at her as he processed everything he heard in the last two hours and thought about the decisions the other version of him made. He recognised a man he once used to be, but the last fifteen years has changed him, armed him with a lot more patience and cunning that he needed to survive in this primitive world.

After a while, Adrianne began watching him instead, watching as he seemed a bit lost in thought. She realised that, even though it wasn’t his own story, it must have given a lot to think about. But she wasn’t yet done, and so she gently brought his attention back to her and continued, speaking in a calm voice, a gentle smile playing on her face once again.

“After that, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. When you were gone, all the Legends that were dead came back to life, those who came back from Doomworld disappeared, but there was still an entire team of them, so taking them on was out of the question, as much as I wanted to. But without you, I had no other way of getting out of 1916, so I did the only thing I could, and followed the Legends back on the ship. Thank goodness I decided this time to take my suit with me, because along with my invisibility, the suit contained a cloaking device, one that was especially expensive, and fortunately it seemed to be enough to hide me from Gideon’s eyes. So, as long as I was carefull, I was able to sneak around the ship undetected. The Legends left Malcolm and Damien in their respective places in time, wiping their memories in the process, and then it was time for Snart. I originally wanted to just sneak out while they were dropping him off, go back to Gotham and pretend none of this has ever happened… but then it suddenly hit me.” she said and she raised her eyes to meet his as her smile widened slightly.

“If the Flash was just beginning in 2014, that meant you had to be there too, and as I remembered everything you told me, I realised all of that happened shortly after we met for the first time. Now I could have gone back with Snart anyway and started from there, but I decided I would need some time to prepare in order to pull this off, so while the team was busy with their prisoners, I stole myself a time machine.” She was clearly relieved as she finally left the past and moved her tale into the presents as her voice was slowly getting clearer and her tone more cheerful.

“The Waverider, as the Legend’s ship was called, was equipped with a smaller time travelling machine called a jump ship, which fortunately didn’t have such difficult controls, and I was able to use it to get back in time, although I did overdo it a bit and I landed in December the previous year. Coincidentally, just a few days before you launched the particle accelerator. 

So, the first thing I did was to destroy the ship. I wasn’t happy about it, it was a really nice machine, but my first task was to make sure the Legends couldn’t find me if they came looking. I took the few useful toys I found on ship, found the self destruct command in the system, did my best to cover the tracks, and then I made my way to Central City. I wanted to be sure I was indeed in the right time, so I went to the launch, and when I saw you there, on that stage, it took me a while to see it, and I wasn’t really sure until I got to talk to you a few months later, but it was really you…” she paused for a minute as she looked at him, before she carried on.

“And so the next thing I did was to disappear. I had to make sure I was invisible in every sense of the word, so for the whole following year I laid low, I wasn’t accepting any contracts, paid by cash only, and made sure to stay as far away from Gotham as I could to avoid meeting my earlier self. And all this time I was making a plan. And when the summer came, I finally moved to Central City, I found a position as a teacher in one of the local schools, rented an apartment and all that and then all I had to do was wait for October.”

“And then?” Eobard asked, sensing she was coming to a conclusion.

“Well, the rest, you already know. I was trying to find a way to integrate myself into the team without letting it seem like I was doing it too intentionally. And then I remembered what Snart told me the night we talked about Barry and my opportunity suddenly presented itself. The moment I heard about the diamond being on display I knew I just had to wait for Snart to make his move and take position in the theatre.” Adrianne gave a short laugh. “Trust me, getting my arm half frozen was not a part of my plan, but it worked perfectly, it got me in here, straight to you, and it gave me a chance to impress the Flash straight away. After that I was just watching, biding my time, trying to figure out what could have gone wrong and when, and I am really sorry, I wanted to explain everything to you a long time ago, but I wasn’t sure how to approach you about it, I know how much is at stake here, and I was worried that…” she turned away in shame as she tried to pick the right words.

“That I might kill you?” he offered, and she looked back at him with worried eyes, but his expression was relaxed, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “Perhaps you should have simply taken your chance as you did before. Or do you really think me so unreasonable, miss Blake?”

Adrianne gave him a bright smile, chuckling as she shook her head in relief. “No, but then again this is a different situation. I was worried you might overreact slightly before I had a chance to tell my story, yes. Which I wouldn’t blame you for, but it would kind of spoil my efforts here… and my continuing fun of being a witness to all this.” she looked at him seriously then, her face solemn as she did so. “I want to see how it ends, and I want to help you end it the right way. So… now that I’ve told you about the past, mr. Thawne… let’s talk about the future...”


End file.
